OF  SOULS 

GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 


A  NATURALIST  OF 
SOULS 

Studies  in  Psychography 

BY 

GAMALIEL    BRADFORD 

AUTHOR  OP  "LEE,  THE  AMERICAN,"  "CONFEDERATE 
PORTRAITS,"  "UNION  PORTRAITS,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1917, 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY.  INC. 


College 
Library 


2/7 


tit  7 


TO 

BLISS    PERRY 

WHO  HAS  HIS  DOUBTS  ABOUT  PSYCHOGRAPHY 

BUT  HAS   HELPED  GREATLY 

IN  THE  MAKING  OF  IT 


1121593 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The  Author  wishes  to  thank  the  publishers 
of  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  The  North  American 
Review,  The  Yale  Review,  The  South  Atlantic 
Quarterly,  and  Poet  Lore  for  permission  to  re- 
print articles  originally  published  by  them. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I       PSYCHOGRAPHY               ....  3 

II     THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE     ...  27 

III  A  PESSIMIST  POET      ....  63 

IV  ANTHONY  TROLLOPE          ...  97 
V     AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK         .  117 

VI     ALEXANDER  DUMAS  ....  139 

VII     THE  NOVEL  Two  THOUSAND  YEARS 

AGO 167 

VIII     A  GREAT  ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER  193 

IX     LETTERS  OF  A  ROMAN  GENTLEMAN     .  219 

i 

X     OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS  .         .         .  247 

XI     PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT         .         .         .  273 


"J*  analyse,  f  herborise,  je  suis  un  naturaliste 
des  esprits." 


SAINTE-BEUVE. 


I 

PSYCHOGRAPHY 


PSYCHOGRAPHY 

SOME  one  asked  Zola  why  he  used  the  term, 
"Naturalism,"  when  there  was  nothing  about 
his  work  that  was  essentially  different  from 
realism  or  from  other  literary  forms  that  had  been 
employed  for  thousands  of  years  before  his  time. 
"I  know  all  that,"  he  said.  "You  are  perfectly 
right.  But  I  needed  a  name  to  attract  the  attention 
of  the  public.  When  I  repeat  the  word  over  and 
over,  it  is  bound  at  last  to  make  people  think  there 
is  something  in  it.  It  is  like  driving  a  nail.  The 
first  blow  does  not  amount  to  much;  but  as  you  add 
another,  and  another,  and  another,  in  the  end  you 
make  progress." 

1  confess  that  my  use  of  the  word,  "Psychogra- 
phy,"  was  at  first  something  like  Zola's  use  of 
"Naturalism."  It  was  not  even  my  own  original 
invention,  though  I  had  coined  it  for  myself  before 
I  discovered  that  it  had  been  used  by  Professor 
Saintsbury  a  few  years  earlier  in  discussing  the  work 
of  Sainte-Beuve.  I  did  not  suppose  that  it  meant 

3 


4  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

anything  particularly  new,  but  it  seemed  to  sum 
up  processes  that  have  been  rather  vaguely  employed 
before  and  to  give  them  a  name  which  might  be 
useful  in  attracting  the  attention  of  the  jaded,  over- 
loaded American  reader. 

I  should  not  now  claim  that  the  word  meant  any- 
thing new  in  substance.  All  literary  and  historical 
methods  have  been  employed  over  and  over  again 
and  the  most  we  can  hope  to  do  is  to  improve  and 
modify  them.  But  the  more  I  practise  psychogra- 
phy,  the  more  it  seems  to  me  to  represent  definite 
phases  of  literary  or  historical  production,  phases 
worthy  not  only  of  a  distinct  name,  but  of  careful 
study  and  consideration. 

I  can  best  introduce  what  I  have  in  mind  by  mak- 
ing clear  one  or  two  things  that  psychography  is 
not.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  at  all  properly  con- 
veyed or  suggested  by  the  word,  portrait.  I  have 
hitherto  used  this  term,  because  it  has  the  excellent 
authority  of  Sainte-Beuve  and  many  others,  and 
because  I  have  not  yet  found  courage  to  talk  about 
"psychographs,"  and  even  if  I  had,  publishers  and 
editors  have  not.  But  "portraits"  is  very  unsatis- 
factory. To  carry  the  terms  of  one  art  into  another 
is  always  misleading,  and  I  have  experienced  this  in 
the  complaint  of  many  critics  that  as  a  portrait 
painter  I  could  present  a  man  at  only  one  moment 
of  his  career,  that  I  depicted  his  character  in  only 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  5 

one  phase,  one  situation,  one  set  of  conditions  and 
circumstances. 

Now  the  aim  of  psychography  is  precisely  oppo- 
site to  this.  Out  of  the  perpetual  flux  of  actions 
and  circumstances  that  constitutes  a  man's  whole 
life,  it  seeks  to  extract  what  is  essential,  what  is 
permanent  and  so  vitally  characteristic.  The  painter 
can  depict  a  face  and  figure  only  as  he  sees  them  at 
one  particular  moment,  though,  in  proportion  to 
the  depth  and  power  of  his  art,  he  can  suggest,  more 
or  less  subtly,  the  vast  complex  of  influences  that 
have  gone  to  building  up  that  face  and  figure.  The 
psychographer  endeavours  to  grasp  as  many  particu- 
lar moments  as  he  can  and  to  give  his  reader  not 
one  but  the  enduring  sum  total  of  them  all. 

But,  it  is  urged,  if  the  object  is  thus  chronological 
completeness,  in  what  respect  does  psychography 
differ  from  biography*?  Simply  that  biography  is 
bound  to  present  an  elaborate  sequence  of  dates, 
events,  and  circumstances,  of  which  some  are  vital 
to  the  analysis  o£  the  individual  subject,  but  many 
are  merely  required  to  make  the  narrative  complete. 
From  this  yast  and  necessary  material  of  biography, 
psychography  selects  only  that  which  is  indispensable 
for  its  particular  purpose,  and  as  the  accumulation 
of  books  becomes  yearly  greater  and  greater,  it  seems 
as  if  this  principle  of  condensation  must  become 
more  and  more  pressing  in  its  appeal. 


6  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Finally,  psychography  differs  from  psychology  in 
that  the  latter  does  not  deal  primarily  with  indi- 
viduals, but  with  general  principles,  and  uses  indi- 
viduals only  for  the  discovery,  development,  and 
illustration  of  those  principles. 

Psychography,  then,  is  the  attempt  to  portray 
character,  and  in  discussing  psychography  we  must 
evidently  begin  with  a  clear  understanding  of  what 
character  means.  The  reader  will  perhaps  pardon 
my  rehearsing  the  no  doubt  crude  metaphysical 
analysis  which  I  have  found  satisfactory  for  my  own 
purposes.  Character  is  quite  distinct  from  indi- 
viduality. Individuality,  so  far  as  we  appear  to 
others  in  this  world,  is  a  vast  complex,  based  pri- 
marily upon  the  body,  the  material,  physical  organi- 
sation, and  consisting  of  all  the  past  history  of  that 
organisation,  its  name  and  all  its  actions  and  utter- 
ances in  theij  sequence  and  concatenation  with  other 
circumstances  and  events. 

It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  evident  that  no  words, 
no  possible  abstract  instruments  of  thinking,  will 
ever  suffice  to  render  this  individuality  in  its  com- 
pleteness. The  brush  of  the  painter  can  at  once 
attain  a  result  that  is  impossible  to  language,  and 
although  the  artist  in  colour  never  conveys  anything 
like  the  fulness  of  individuality,  yet  the  physical 
portrayal  he  achieves  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  7 

distinct  from  the  portrayal  of  any  other  human 
being,  and  so  far  individual. 

But  we  poor  workers  in  words  have  to  toil  vaguely 
after  a  result  which  is  far  less  conclusive  and  satis- 
fying. Even  the  concrete  method,  employed  by  the 
novelist  and  dramatist,  of  letting  a  personage  do  his 
own  deeds  and  speak  his  own  words,  rarely  makes 
any  approach  to  complete  individuality.  No  single 
human  action,  as  verbally  recorded,  can  be  confined 
to  one  human  being  more  than  to  another,  and 
scarcely  any  complication  of  actions.  In  the  same 
way  no  word  or  combination  of  words  is  distinctively 
yours  or  mine,  or  Csesar's  or  Napoleon's.  A  thou- 
sand women  might  have  murdered  Duncan  as  Lady 
Macbeth  did,  and  a  million  men  might  have  said 
with  Hamlet,  "To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the 
question." 

Fortunately,  in  the  weltering  chaos  which  is  to- 
taled by  the  word,  individuality,  there  is  one  clue 
that  we  can  seize,  though  it  is  frail  and  insecure. 
As  we  observe  the  actions  of  different  men,  we  find 
that  they  follow  certain  comparatively  definite  lines, 
which  we  call  habits,  that  is,  the  same  man  will  per- 
form over  and  over  again  actions,  and  speak  words, 
which  have  a  basis  of  resemblance  to  each  other, 
though  the  basis  is  often  obscure  and  elusive.  And 
back  of  the  words  and  actions  we  assume  from  our 
own  experience  motives  of  sensation  and  emotion, 


8  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

which  serve  to  strengthen  and  confirm  such  resem- 
blance. On  this  vague  basis  of  fact  is  built  the 
whole  fabric  of  our  study  and  knowledge  of  our 
fellow  men.  The  generalisation  of  these  habits  of 
action,  sometimes  expressing  itself  very  obscurely 
and  imperfectly  for  the  acute  observer  in  features 
and  manifestations  of  the  body,  constitutes  what  we 
call  qualities.  And  the  complex  of  these  qualities 
in  turn  forms  the  fleeting  and  uncertain  total  which 
we  sum  up  in  the  word,  character.  An  honest  man  is 
one  who  does  honest  actions.  A  simple  man  is  one 
who  does  simple  actions.  An  ambitious  man  does 
ambitious  actions.  A  cruel  man,  cruel  actions.  And 
so  on,  almost  without  limit.  The  importance  of 
these  quality  terms  is  so  enormous  in  our  practical 
daily  lives  that  we  are  apt,  as  with  many  other 
abstractions,  to  look  upon  them  as  mysterious  enti- 
ties, functions,  elements,  in  some  way  existing  by 
themselves  and  entering  into  the  very  fibre  and  sub- 
stance of  the  man's  inmost  soul.  And  so  far  as  his 
habits  of  action  are  ingrained,  vital,  rooted  deep 
down  in  the  solid  foundations  of  education  and  in- 
heritance, these  words  which  express  habit  are  per- 
manent and  significant,  but  their  significance  comes 
only  from  the  acts  they  generalise  and  the  inferred 
feelings  and  emotions  that  prompt  those  acts,  noth- 
ing more. 

Character,  then,  is  the  sum  of  qualities  or  gen- 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  9 

eralised  habits  of  action.  Psychography  is  the  con- 
densed, essential,  artistic  presentation  of  character. 
And  it  is  now  perfectly  obvious  how  frail,  how  in- 
firm, how  utterly  unreliable  is  the  material  basis 
upon  which  psychography  rests.  First,  before  we 
can  analyse  and  generalise  a  man's  habits  of  speech 
and  action,  we  must  deal  with  the  historical  record 
of  that  speech  and  action.  And  here,  of  course,  we 
meet  the  ordinary  difficulties  in  regard  to  accuracy, 
which  have  become  so  many  and  so  glaring  in  the 
light  of  modern  historical  research.  Most  of  our 
knowledge  of  men's  actions  in  the  past  depends  upon 
the  testimony  of  others.  That  testimony,  when  lim- 
ited in  amount,  is  extremely  uncertain,  as  shown 
by  the  fact  that,  when  abundant,  it  is  usually  con- 
flicting. In  the  small  number  of  cases  in  which 
we  have  the  testimony  of  the  man  himself,  we  are 
apt  to  be  more  puzzled  and  perplexed  than  when 
we  are  without  it.  As  with  actions,  so  with  words. 
It  is  rare  indeed  that  we  can  be  sure  of  having  even 
the  substance  off  a  man's  speech  correctly  reported 
to  us.  Yet  for  the  interpretation  of  his  character 
it  is  often  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  should 
have  his  exact  language,  and,  if  possible,  the  tone 
and  gesture  and  emphasis  that  double  or  halve  its 
significance. 

But  these  concrete,  historical  difficulties  are  but 
the  smallest  part  of  the  problem  we  have  to  deal 


10  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

with  in  psychography.  Supposing  that  we  have 
the  most  reliable  record  of  a  man's  deeds  and  ut- 
terances, we  have  advanced  but  a  very  little  way  in 
establishing  the  qualities  of  his  character.  What 
actions  are  just,  what  actions  are  generous,  what 
actions  are  cruel,  what  actions  are  foolish*?  To 
determine  these  points  requires  wide  reflection  on 
the  bearing  of  actions  in  reference  to  all  sorts  of 
conditions  and  circumstances,  and  on  a  man's  own 
judgment  and  others'  judgment  of  that  bearing. 
The  result  of  such  reflection  will  be  different  in  dif- 
ferent minds,  and  the  colour  that  an  action  assumes 
to  you  will  be  very  different  from  what  it  assumes 
to  me  or  to  the  next  critic  who  considers  it. 

Further,  the  generalisation  of  actions  is  always 
imperfect.  A  man  may  do  one  or  several  kindly 
actions,  yet  not  have  the  essential  habit  of  kindli- 
ness. A  man  whose  ordinary  life  runs  in  the  con- 
ventional groove  of  honesty  may  meet  some  sudden 
crisis  with  an  entire  reversal  of  his  honest  habit. 
The  most  minute  study,  the  widest  experience  in  the 
investigation  of  human  actions  and  their  motives, 
only  make  us  feel  more  and  more  the  shifting,  ter- 
rible uncertainty  of  the  ground  under  our  feet. 

The  natural  question  then  arises,  of  what  use  is 
psychography?  Why  perplex  and  torment  one's 
self  with  the  study  of  character,  when  the  difficulty 
is  so  great  and  the  result  so  uncertain,  when  we 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  11 

seem  to  begin  with  nothing  and  to  end  with  nothing, 
to  be  weaving  a  skein  of  shadows  into  a  fabric  of 
clouds  ? 

The  answer  is  first,  that  there  is  no  possible  study 
more  fascinating.  The  problems  of  character,  in 
others  and  in  ourselves,  are  teasing  us  for  solution 
every  moment  of  our  lives.  The  naturalist  spends 
years  in  studying  the  life  and  habits  of  a  bird,  or  a 
frog,  or  a  beetle.  But  every  beetle  is  a  beetle,  and 
when  you  have  studied  the  class,  the  individual  is 
practically  nothing.  With  the  human  class  every  in- 
dividual is  infinitely  varied  from  every  other  and 
the  field  of  study  is  as  inexhaustible  as  it  is  ab- 
sorbing. 

Moreover,  if  psychography  is  an  impossible 
science,  it  is  a  necessary  one.  The  psychographer 
is  not  a  curious  dilettante,  investigating  odd  facts  to 
pass  an  idle  hour.  The  one  form  of  knowledge  that 
is  practical  above  all  others  is  the  knowledge  of  our- 
selves and  of  other  men.  We  are  all  psychograph- 
ers  from  the  cradle.  The  child,  almost  before  it  can 
speak,  learns  just  what  will  affect  its  father  or  its 
mother,  and  what  will  not.  In  our  business  and  in 
our  pleasure,  in  our  hope  and  in  our  fear,  in  our  toil 
and  in  our  repose,  we  are  always  considering,  ex- 
amining, calculating  upon  the  action  of  others.  We 
miscalculate  and  mistake  and  blunder  disastrously 
again  and  again,  but  we  still  pursue  our  instinctive 


12  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

psychography,  because  it  is  more  important  than 
anything  else  to  the  successful  conduct  and  even  to 
the  mere  living  of  our  lives. 

Of  course,  in  the  vast  chaos  of  individual  action 
and  speech,  certain  elements  are  far  more  significant 
than  others,  and  it  is  largely  in  the  discovery  and 
interpretation  of  these  elements  that  the  claim  of 
psychography  consists.  A  man  may  deliver  a  formal 
oration,  carefully  framed  after  conventional  models 
and  tell  us  practically  nothing  about  himself.  I  long 
since  learned  that  such  material  as  the  fifteen  vol- 
umes of  Sumner's  collected  works  was  of  little  or 
no  value  for  my  purposes.  Again,  a  careless  word, 
spoken  with  no  intention  whatever,  a  mere  gesture, 
the  lifting  of  the  hand  or  the  turning  of  the  head, 
may  fling  open  a  wide  window  into  a  man's  inmost 
heart. 

When  one  gets  to  watching  for  these  subtle  in- 
dications of  character,  the  delight  of  them  is  in- 
expressible. All  history  and  biography  are  strewn 
with  them,  but  in  astonishingly  varying  abundance. 
The  Diary  of  Pepys  contains  new  light  on  the 
writer's  soul  in  every  page  and  paragraph.  The 
equally  extensive  Diary  of  Madame  D'Arblay  is  ar- 
tificial, literary,  external,  and  tells  comparatively 
little  about  Madame  D'Arblay  herself.  General 
Sherman  wears  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve.  Material 
for  depicting  him  is  so  plenty  that  there  is  only  the 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  13 

difficulty  of  selecting.  General  Lee  conceals  him- 
self instinctively  behind  a  barrier  of  formal  re- 
serve, and  it  is  only  by  long  study  that  one  comes 
across  such  vivid  revelations  as  his  remark  at  Fred- 
ericksburg,  "It  is  well  that  war  is  so  terrible,  or  else 
we  should  grow  too  fond  of  it." 

Of  course  these  revelations  of  soul  are  not  con- 
fined to  books  or  to  historical  personages.  The  men 
and  women  we  meet  in  casual  daily  intercourse  are 
always  telling — or  concealing — the  same  story  of 
what  they  are  and  what  they  are  not.  One  or  two 
apparently  trifling  instances  have  stuck  in  my  mem- 
ory from  their  singular  significance.  A  man's  wife 
was  caught  unexpectedly,  in  travelling,  with  little  or 
no  money,  and  obliged  to  explain  her  difficulties  to 
the  hotel  keeper  and  telegraph  to  her  husband  for 
assistance.  The  husband  sent  it  at  once,  but  his 
comment  was,  "To  think  that  my  wife  should  be 
stranded  in  a  hotel  without  money."  Just  reflect 
upon  all  that  little  sentence  tells  of  the  person  who 
wrote  it.  Agair^  I  was  explaining  to  a  friend  a  ter- 
rible disaster  that  had  happened  to  another  friend 
and  I  was  myself  so  agitated  and  overcome  that  I 
could  not  make  anything  approaching  a  lucid  story. 
My  hearer  was  dumfounded  by  my  condition  and 
after  a  moment's  effort  to  gather  what  I  was.  driving 
at,  his  first  word  was,  "Tell  me,  at  least,  does  this 
trouble  concern  me?"  Think  of  the  depths  of  hu- 


H  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

man  nature  revealed  in  that!  Take  still  another 
instance.  A  most  worthy,  affectionate,  devoted  hus- 
band, who  was  trying  to  do  all  that  could  be  done 
for  an  invalid  wife,  used  often  to  remark,  "When 
I  stand  by  her  grave,  I  do  not  wish  to  have  anything 
to  reproach  myself  with."  Simple,  natural  words, 
perhaps,  yet  they  seem  to  me  distinctly  significant 
of  a  certain  type  of  man. 

So,  every  day,  every  hour,  every  minute,  we  are 
all  of  us  writing  our  own  psychographs,  at  any  rate 
piling  up  ample  material  for  some  one  else  to  do 
it  for  us. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  attention  to  such  mi- 
nute details  in  the  conduct  of  historical  personages, 
not  to  speak  of  our  neighbours,  savours  of  mere  gos- 
sip. We  degrade  history  and  biography,  it  is  said, 
when  we  make  them  depend  on  careless  words  and 
unregarded  actions.  But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  sug- 
gested, that  the  knowledge  of  others'  characters  is 
absolutely  vital  to  living  our  own  lives  and  that  just 
such  careless  words  and  unregarded  actions  give  us 
this  knowledge  of  character,  then  assuredly  it  is 
right  we  should  observe  them,  no  matter  how  trivial 
and  apparently  insignificant. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  psychography  is  always 
in  danger  of  degenerating  into  gossip.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  two  is  simply  that  gossip  springs 
from  the  desire  to  saturate  our  own  emptiness  with 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  15 

the  lives  of  others,  from  a  mere  idle  curiosity  about 
things  and  persons,  bred  by  an  utter  lack  of  interest 
in  ourselves.  Gossip  makes  no  distinction  of  signifi- 
cance between  different  facts,  but  gapes  wide  for 
all,  only  more  eagerly  for  those  that  offer  more 
violent  and  abnormal  distraction.  Psychography 
picks,  chooses,  and  rejects;  in  a  bushel  of  chaff  finds 
only  a  grain  or  two  of  wheat,  but  treasures  that 
wheat  as  precious  and  invaluable. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  psychography  as  a 
science,  that  is,  of  the  material  with  which  the  psy- 
chographer  deals.  Before  I  touch  upon  psychography 
as  an  art,  let  me  turn  for  a  few  moments  to  the  writer 
from  whom  I  think  the  psychographer  has  most  to 
learn,  Sainte-Beuve. 

It  is  curious  that  Sainte-Beuve  should  have  been 
all  his  life  the  most  exquisite  practitioner  of  psy- 
chography and  never  have  known  it.  I  do  not  mean 
that  he  did  not  use  the  word.  That  is  a  small  mat- 
ter. But  he  always  thought  and  spoke  of  himself  as 
a  literary  critic,  all  the  while  that  he  was  doing  work 
far  different  from  literary  criticism. 

Indeed,  as  a  mere  critic,  I  do  not  think  that  Sainte- 
Beuve  quite  deserves  the  rank  usually  assigned  him. 
He  had  little  knowledge  of  any  literature  beside  the 
classics  and  his  own.  Even  in  speaking  of  things 
French,  he  is  a  very  unsatisfactory  guide,  outside  of 
the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries. 


16  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

If  he  writes  of  his  contemporaries,  his  judgments, 
when  just,  are  apt  to  be  intertangled  with  a  per- 
sonal element  of  jealousy,  which  is  very  unpleasant. 
Such  pure  criticism  as  his  study  of  Theocritus  has 
great  and  peculiar  charm,  but  it  is  much  less  common 
in  his  work  than  is  generally  supposed. 

Where  he  is  really  distinguished  and  original 
and  unrivalled,  is  as  what  he  himself  called,  in  a 
rare  moment  of  analysis,  "a  naturalist  of  souls." 
In  insight  into  the  deep  and  hidden  motives  and 
passions  of  the  soul,  in  power  of  distinguishing  and 
denning  them,  best  of  all,  in  cunning  and  subtle  gift 
of  winnowing  material  so  as  to  select  just  those 
significant  and  telling  illustrative  words  and  actions 
I  have  spoken  of, — in  all  these  admirable  qualities 
he  had  no  predecessor  and  has  had  no  follower 
who  can  at  all  approach  him.  His  vast  col- 
lection of  studies  of  great  and  striking  figures 
in  French  history  is  something  quite  unmatched 
in  any  other  literature,  and  it  is  coming  to 
stand  out  more  and  more  and  be  better  appre- 
ciated, as  it  is  more  widely  known.  Best  of  all  are 
his  many  portraits  of  women.  Madame  de  Sevigne, 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  Madame  Du  Deffand,  Ma- 
dame d'Epinay,  and  a  score  of  others,  representing 
entirely  different  aspects  of  character,  are  depicted 
with  a  fidelity,  a  sympathy,  a  delicacy,  a  just  appre- 
ciation of  mental  and  moral  strength  and  weakness, 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  17 

which  make  you  feel  as  if  you  had  known  every  one 
of  them  all  your  life. 

Now  it  seems  evident  enough  that  it  is  a  mere  mis- 
use of  terms  to  call  such  work  as  this  literary  criti- 
cism. Is  it  not  strange,  then,  that  Sainte-Beuve 
should  never  have  got  really  clear  with  himself  about 
what  he  was  doing,  but  should  have  insisted  that 
because  these  various  women  wrote  letters,  there- 
fore, in  discussing  them,  he  was  discussing  literature? 
The  explanation  is  closely  connected  with  an  es- 
sential element  of  his  greatness.  For  he  was  not 
an  abstract  thinker,  not  a  man  of  theories  or  formu- 
lae. His  attempts  to  analyse  the  general  character 
of  his  work  are  rare,  and  those  that  do  occur  are  not 
lucid  or  satisfactory.  What  he  did  have  was  an 
immense,  insatiable  desire  for  observation,  investiga- 
tion. Few  men  have  personified  more  completely 
than  he  the  spirit  of  pure  scientific  curiosity,  the 
love  and  reverence  for  the  fact  in  itself,  independent 
of  argument,  or  of  any  effort  to  use  facts  as  foun- 
dations for  theoties.  One  of  the  ablest  of  his  fol- 
lowers, Scherer,  points  out  that  in  all  Sainte-Beuve' s 
vast  work  there  is  little  or  no  repetition.  This  is 
true,  but  Scherer  fails  to  note  the  significant  reason. 
It  is  because  Sainte-Beuve  adores  and  imitates  the 
immense  individuality  of  nature.  Scherer  himself, 
Brunetiere,  France,  Lemaitre,  Faguet,  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, all  admirers  and  imitators  of  Sainte-Beuve, 


i8  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

miss  his  excellence  in  this  point  entirely.  Not  one  of 
them  left  a  quarter  part  as  much  work  as  Sainte- 
Beuve  did.  Yet  not  one  of  them  but  in  those  nar- 
rower limits  repeats  himself  over  and  over  in  some 
philosophical  discussion  or  some  abstract  theory,  as 
all  readers  will  immediately  realise  in  regard  to  Mat- 
thew Arnold.  To  Sainte-Beuve  theories  were  mis- 
leading and  unprofitable.  Human  beings  were  un- 
limited in  fascination  and  charm. 

Thus,  no  one  was  more  widely  conversant  with  the 
material  of  psychography  than  he.  Moreover,  so 
far  as  the  art  of  psychography  consists  in  the  cun- 
ning and  exquisite  selection  of  illustrative  details, 
no  one  has  ever  surpassed  or  ever  will  surpass  him. 

But  there  is  another  phase  of  psychographic  art, 
which  becomes  daily  of  greater  interest  to  me,  and 
which  Sainte-Beuve  practised  comparatively  little. 
This  is  the  phase  of  composition.  His  method  of 
procedure  was  usually  that  of  simple  biography. 
After  a  brief  introduction,  he  followed  the  chronol- 
ogy of  his  subject,  developing  different  points  of 
character  in  connection  with  different  circumstances 
or  periods.  No  doubt  great  variety  can  be  obtained 
in  this  way,  as  every  skilled  biographer  knows.  At 
the  same  time,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  gain  in 
swinging  clear  from  this  chronological  sequence  al- 
together, and  in  attaching  oneself  solely  to  the  pres- 
entation of  a  man's  qualities  of  character,  arranged 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  19 

and  treated  in  such  logical  sequence  as  shall  give  a 
total  impression  that  will  be  most  effective  and  most 
enduring.  I  confess  that  I  had  grave  doubts  about 
this  procedure  at  first.  I  feared  that  the  discussion 
of  qualities  in  the  abstract  would  be  academic,  ped- 
agogic, monotonous.  Even  yet  I  am  not  prepared 
to  affirm  that  this  will  not  prove  true  and  that  in 
the  end  I  shall  not  have  to  fall  back  on  simple  bio- 
graphical structure.  But  my  doubt  in  the  matter 
diminishes  daily.  Indeed,  it  is  in  this  regard  that 
the  originality  and  significance  of  psychography  im- 
presses me  most,  and  I  am  astonished  to  find  how  rich 
and  varied  are  the  possibilities  of  artistic  presenta- 
tion with  every  individual  character.  Instead  of  a 
monotonous  renewal  of  the  same  qualities  in  the 
same  order,  every  individual  seems  to  suggest  and 
to  require  a  different  arrangement,  a  different  em- 
phasis. So  that  I  come  to  feel  that  Nature  herself 
is  the  artist  and  that  all  one  has  to  do  is  to  lend  a 
patient,  earnest  e^ar  to  her  dictation.  It  is  true  that 
not  one  but  a  dozen  possibilities  of  composition  are 
indicated  in  every  case  and  this  seems  largely  to  ac- 
centuate the  uncertainty  and  unreliability  of  psy- 
chographic  art.  But,  as  I  have  already  shown,  such 
wide  variety  in  methods  of  treatment  corresponds  to 
a  far  wider  variety  in  the  material  employed,  and 
the  search  for  the  best  form  of  developing  the  ma- 


20  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

terial  is  as  delightful  as  the  discovery  of  the  ma- 
terial itself. 

After  enlarging  on  Sainte-Beuve  especially  as  the 
master  of  all  psychographers,  I  want  to  refer  also 
to  some  other  artists,  to  whom  I  at  least  owe  almost 
as  much.  What  we  may  call  the  quintescence  of 
psychography  is  those  studies  of  character  to  be 
found  in  the  literary  and  imaginative  historians, 
Tacitus,  Clarendon,  Saint-Simon,  to  name  no  others. 

Take  Clarendon's  character  of  the  Earl  of  Arun- 
del :  "It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  had  in  his  person, 
in  his  aspect,  and  countenance,  the  appearance  of  a 
great  man,  which  he  preserved  in  his  gait  and  mo- 
tion. He  wore  and  affected  a  habit  very  different 
from  that  of  the  time,  such  as  men  had  only  beheld 
in  the  pictures  of  the  most  considerable  men;  all 
which  drew  the  eyes  of  most,  and  the  reverence  of 
many,  towards  him,  as  the  image  and  representative 
of  the  primitive  nobility,  and  native  gravity  of  the 
nobles,  when  they  had  been  most  venerable;  but 
this  was  only  his  outside,  his  nature  and  true  humour 
being  so  much  disposed  to  vulgar  delights,  which  in- 
deed were  very  despicable  and  childish.  He  was 
never  suspected  to  love  anybody,  nor  to  have  the 
least  propensity  to  justice,  charity,  or  compassion,  so 
that  though  he  got  all  he  could,  and  by  all  the  ways 
he  could,  and  spent  much  more  than  he  got  or  had, 
he  was  never  known  to  give  anything,  nor  in  all  his 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  21 

employments  .  .  .  never  man  used  or  employed  by 
him  ever  got  any  fortune  under  him,  nor  did  ever 
any  man  acknowledge  any  obligation  to  him.  He 
was  rather  thought  to  be  without  religion  than  to 
incline  to  this  or  that  party  of  any.  He  would  have 
been  a  proper  instrument  for  any  tyranny,  if  he 
could  have  found  a  man  tyrant  enough  to  have  been 
advised  by  him,  and  had  no  other  affection  for  the 
nation  or  the  kingdom,  than  as  he  had  a  great  share 
in  it,  in  which,  like  the  great  leviathan,  he  might 
sport  himself;  from  which  he  withdrew  himself,  as 
soon  as  he  discerned  the  repose  thereof  was  like  to 
be  disturbed,  and  died  in  Italy,  under  the  same 
doubtful  character  of  religion  in  which  he  lived." 

Take  again  this  portrait  of  the  Duke  de  La  Feuil- 
lade,  by  Saint-Simon :  "He  had  much  wit  and  many 
sorts  of  wit.  He  knew  how  to  impress  his  merits  up- 
on those  who  saw  the  surface  only,  and  he  had  above 
all  the  kind  of  conversation  and  manners  that  en- 
chant women.  He  was  delightful  to  live  with,  if  you 
cared  only  for  amusement.  He  was  magnificent  in 
everything,  liberal,  courteous,  very  brave  and  very 
gallant,  a  great  and  a  daring  gamester.  He  knew 
well  his  own  good  qualities  and  made  parade  of 
them,  was  self-asserting,  always  full  of  moral  saws, 
and  loved  to  argue  to  show  his  wit.  His  ambition 
was  limitless,  and  as  he  was  inconstant  in  great  and 
little  things  both,  ambition  and  the  love  of  pleasure 


22  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

possessed  him  alternately.  He  was  always  eager 
for  reputation,  and  he  had  the  art  of  paying  apt 
court  to  those  whose  praise  could  help  him  and  by 
their  praise,  which  entailed  that  of  others,  of  making 
himself  a  figure  in  the  social  world.  He  appeared 
to  desire  friends  and  sustained  the  delusion  for  a 
long  time.  He  had  a  heart  corrupted  to  the  bot- 
tom, a  soul  of  mud,  and  was  an  infidel  for  the  fash- 
ionable air  of  being  so.  In  short,  he  was  as  thor- 
oughly worthless  a  man  as  has  been  known  for 
years." 

In  these  wonderful  portraits  the  defects  of  psy- 
chography,  which  I  indicated  in  beginning,  are  glar- 
ingly apparent,  its  dependence  upon  generalisations, 
usually  hasty  and  never  complete,  and  its  consequent 
unreliability  and  incapacity  for  ever  being  abso- 
lute or  final.  But  what  light  they  throw,  not  only 
upon  the  subjects  actually  presented,  but  upon  the 
human  heart  in  general,  with  its  passions  and  weak- 
nesses! It  would  indeed  be  vain  to  hope  to  equal 
the  vividness,  the  brevity,  the  imaginative  power  of 
these  great  masters,  but  by  amplifying  their  intense, 
concentrated  method  with  fuller  detail,  with  a 
broader  and  more  elaborate  arrangement  of  design, 
above  all  with  carefully  chosen  and  significant  illus- 
tration, the  defects  of  psychography  can  be  partially 
concealed,  if  never  obliterated.  In  spite  of  its  de- 
fects, or  because  of  them,  it  is  one  of  the  most  inex- 


PSYCHOGRAPHY  23 

haustibly  fascinating  pursuits  ever  yet  discovered 
to  appease  the  restless  activity  of  the  human  mind, 
and  the  one  to  which  applies  most  of  all  the  old  Ro- 
man apothegm, 

All  longings  fail  save  that  to  understand. 

The  reader  who  has  been  at  all  interested  in  the 
preceding  discussion  will,  I  trust,  follow  with  some 
curiosity  the  sequence  of  the  following  chapters, 
which  illustrates  rather  fully  at  least  the  practical 
development  of  psychography. 

In  "The  Poetry  of  Donne"  and  "A  Pessimist 
Poet"  I  had  no  thought  of  aiming  at  anything  but 
literary  criticism.  Yet  the  psychographical  interest 
and  even  the  beginnings  of  psychographical  method 
are  obvious  in  both.  This  is  more  marked  in  "An- 
thony Trollope,"  "An  Odd  Sort  of  Popular  Book," 
and  "Alexander  Dumas,"  though  when  writing  them 
I  had  still  no  thought  of  psychography  as  a  word  or 
a  thing.  "The  Novel  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago" 
has,  from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  no  direct  psycho- 
graphical  bearing,  though  the  method  is,  I  think, 
more  indicated  than  in  some  of  the  earlier  examples. 
"A  Great  English  Portrait  Painter"  analyses  the 
work  and  the  character  of  one  to  whom  psychog- 
raphy is  deeply  indebted  for  models  and  for  inspira- 
tion. Finally,  the  last  three  portraits  are  elaborate 
specimens  of  psychography  working  consciously,  and 


24  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

the  last  two  are  as  finished  psychographs  as  it  is  in 
my  power  to  produce.  I  trust  that  others,  using  a 
similar  method,  will  produce  something  much  better. 

1915 


II 

THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE 


II 


THE    POETRY    OF    DONNE1 

POETS  of  the  first  rank  may  be  expected  to 
unite  the  praises  of  all  schools  of  critics. 
Those  of  a  lower  order,  those,  at  any  rate, 
who  are  read  only  by  the  few,  have  generally  a  fac- 
tion that  adores  them  and  another  that  rejects  them 
wholly.  This  is  more  or  less  the  case  with  Shelley, 
with  Leopardi,  with  Browning.  It  is  at  present  the 
fortune  of  Donne  to  be  ignored  by  the  general  pub- 
lic, and  to  be  at  the  same  time  an  object  of  enthusi- 
asm to  very  different  minds  among  those  who  know. 
This  will  be  sufficiently  proved  by  two  quotations. 
One  is  from  Lowell:  "What  are  the  conditions  of 
permanence*?  Immediate  or  contemporaneous  recog- 
nition is  not  one  6f  them,  or  Cowley  would  be  popu- 
lar. .  .  .  Nor  can  mere  originality  assure  the  in- 
terest of  posterity,  else  why  are  Chaucer  and  Gray 
familiar,  while  Donne,  one  of  the  subtlest  and  most 
self-irradiating  minds  that  ever  sought  an  outlet  in 

1  Since  this  essay  was  written  much  study,  both  biographical  and 
editorial,  has  been  given  to  Donne;  but  it  has  not  changed  the 
essential  character  of  the  man  or  the  splendour  of  his  poetry. 

27 


28  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

verse,  is  known  only  to  the  few?"  The  other  is  from 
a  critic  whose  taste  and  judgments  are  certainly 
quite  different  from  Lowell's,  Swinburne,  who,  in 
his  rhetorical  fashion,  refers  thus  to  Donne,  while 
speaking  of  the  prose  writings  of  Ben  Jonson: 
"That  chance  is  the  ruler  of  the  world  I  should  be 
sorry  to  believe  and  reluctant  to  affirm ;  but  it  would 
be  difficult  for  any  competent  and  careful  student  to 
maintain  that  chance  is  not  the  ruler  of  the  world 
of  letters.  Gray's  Odes  are  still,  I  suppose,  familiar 
to  thousands  who  know  nothing  of  Donne's  Anniver- 
saries ;  and  Bacon's  Essays  are  conventionally  if  not 
actually  familiar  to  thousands  who  know  nothing  of 
Ben  Jonson's  Discoveries.  And  yet  it  is  certain 
that  in  fervour  of  inspiration  and  depth  and  force 
and  glow  of  thought  and  emotion  and  expression 
Donne's  verses  are  as  far  above  Gray's  as  Jonson's 
notes  or  observations  on  men  and  morals,  on  princi- 
ples and  on  facts,  are  superior  to  Bacon's  in  truth 
of  insight,  in  breadth  of  view,  in  vigour  of  reflection, 
and  in  concision  of  eloquence."  It  will  be  noticed 
that  both  writers  emphasise  the  merit  of  Donne  by 
a  comparison  with  Gray. 

Donne's  reputation  among  men  of  letters  has  not 
always  been  so  high.  Dr.  Johnson  selected  him  as 
the  type  of  what  was  objectionable  in  the  so-called 
metaphysical  poets,  and  he  was  certainly  repugnant 
enough  to  the  taste  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  29 

among  his  own  contemporaries  he  was  regarded  with 
enthusiasm  both  as  a  poet  and  as  a  man.  Ben  Jonson, 
no  easy  judge,  called  him  "the  first  poet  of  the 
world  in  some  things :"  and  Carew,  in  his  admirable 
eulogy,  speaks  of  him  as 

"A  king  who  ruled  as  he  thought  fit 
The  universal  monarchy  of  wit." 

We  shall  find,  I  think,  that  the  study  of  his 
poems  fully  justifies  this  high  estimate  of  him, 
though  his  unpopularity  with  those  who  read  to 
pass  an  idle  hour  is  perfectly  explicable. 


Our  materials  for  the  life  of  Donne  are  more 
abundant  than  is  the  case  with  many  Elizabethan 
writers.  Besides  the  charming  narrative  of  Walton, 
there  are  biographical  facts  contained  in  Donne's 
own  poems;  above  all,  a  great  number  of  his  let- 
ters are  extant,  affording  valuable  information,  es- 
pecially as  to  his  later  years.  What  would  we  not 
give  for  such  precious  documents  from  the  hand  of 
Shakespeare ! 

John  Donne  was  born  in  London  in  the  year 
1573.  The  most  interesting  thing  we  know  about 
his  youth  is  that  his  parents  were  strongly  Roman 


30  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Catholic,  and  made  every  effort  to  bring  him  up  in 
that  religion.  He  was  sent  to  the  University  of 
Oxford  in  his  twelfth  year  that  he  might  avoid  the 
oath,  which  was  not  administered  to  those  under 
sixteen,  and  which,  as  a  Catholic,  he  could  not  take. 
According  to  Walton,  he  left  Oxford  for  Cambridge, 
and  completed  his  education  there;  but  this  state- 
ment is  said  to  be  unfounded.  Walton  also  tells 
us  that  in  the  seventeenth  year  of  his  age  he  was 
admitted  to  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  there  began  the 
study  of  law.  What  is  more  important,  from  the 
light  it  throws  on  his  character,  is  the  statement  that 
soon  after  this  he  entered  into  an  examination  of 
the  Catholic  and  Protestant  creeds,  pursuing  his  re- 
searches through  the  gloomiest  depths  of  theological 
controversy.  Nothing  could  be  more  like  Donne. 
The  word  which  stamps  itself  on  every  line  of  his 
works,  on  every  trait  of  his  nature,  is  intensity,  that 
restless,  hungry  energy  of  mind,  which  will  not  let 
a  man  shut  his  eyes  while  there  is  a  corner  of 
thought  unprobed,  unlightened.  Vigour  of  intellect, 
fervour  of  emotion, — these  are  what  give  Donne  his 
high  position  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  many  poems  that 
he  wrote  about  this  time,  his  theological  studies  were 
followed  by  a  plunge  into  dissipations  of  a  quite 
untheological  nature.  Here,  too,  intensity  is  still 
the  word.  No  depth  of  passion — let  us  speak 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  31 

frankly,  sensuality — was  too  much  for  this  eager 
temper,  this  fierce  and  energetic  soul. 

In  the  year  1596  Donne  appears  to  have  gone  with 
the  Earl  of  Essex  on  the  expedition  to  Cadiz.  When 
he  returned  he  was  made  secretary  to  the  Lord 
Keeper  Elsmore,  and  through  him  became  acquainted 
with  Lady  Elsmore's  niece,  whom  he  afterwards 
married.  The  history  of  the  match  is  curious.  Sir 
George  Moore,  the  lady's  father,  being  informed  of 
Donne's  attachment  to  his  daughter,  opposed  it, 
not  unnaturally,  as  she  was  but  sixteen,  and  Donne's 
prospects  were  not  over-brilliant.  The  young  people 
were  constant  to  each  other,  and  were  at  length  se- 
cretly married.  Sir  George  was  indignant,  and  took 
the  short-sighted  step  of  getting  Donne  dismissed 
from  his  place.  When  Donne  heard  of  this,  he  wrote 
his  wife  with  the  characteristic  signature,  "John 
Donne,  Ann  Donne,  un-done,"  to  appreciate  which 
it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  proper  name 
was  then  pronounced  like  the  participle.  Sir  George 
even  went  further,  and  managed  to  have  Donne  and 
.two  of  his  friends  committed  to  prison.  The  con- 
finement was  short,  and  father  and  son-in-law  were 
finally  reconciled;  but  Donne  was  not  out  of  his 
difficulties.  Sir  George,  repenting  of  his  hasty  se- 
verity, made  an  attempt  to  have  the  ex-secretary 
reinstated.  In  this  he  was  unsuccessful,  and  as  he 
refused  to  help  support  the  young  couple,  their  po- 


32  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

sition  was  a  hard  one.  At  this  time  both  circum- 
stances and  inclination  led  Donne  toward  the  church ; 
but  conscientious  scruples  and  the  memory  of  his 
past  life  deterred  him.  For  a  number  of  years  he 
struggled  on,  assisted  by  his  friends.  His  reputa- 
tion as  a  scholar  and  a  wit  grew  constantly,  and  in 
the  year  1610  he  wrote,  at  the  request  of  the  king, 
his  book  against  the  Catholics,  entitled  "Pseudo- 
Martyr."  The  next  year  he  was  abroad  for  some 
time  with  one  of  KIs  patrons,  Sir  Robert  Drury.  Aft- 
er his  return  he  began  to  have  a  hope  of  secular  pre- 
ferment about  the  court;  and  this  was  probably  the 
cause  of  his  connection  with  the  infamous  Carr,  after- 
wards Earl  of  Somerset.  We  have  a  number  of  his 
letters  to  Carr,  and  also  his  "Epithalamium,"  com- 
posed for  the  marriage  of  Somerset  and  the  divorced 
Countess  of  Essex.  His  expectations,  if  he  had  any, 
were,  however,  disappointed  by  the  exposure  and 
condemnation  of  that  well-matched  pair. 

Some  record  of  Donne's  existence  in  the  unhappy 
years  after  his  marriage  is  preserved  for  us  in  his 
letters,  which  impress  one  chiefly  by  a  tone  of  manly 
dignity  blended  with  fine  sensibility.  Those  who 
have  got  from  Johnson  the  idea  that  Donne  was  a 
clever  but  chilly  trifler  should  study  his  correspond- 
ence. I  quote  one  passage,  written  probably  a  few 
years  after  his  marriage,  when  he  was  in  despair 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  33 

over  the  uncertainty  of  his  fortunes  and  the  unprofit- 
ableness of  his  life : — 

"Every  Tuesday  I  make  account  that  I  turn  a 
great  hour-glass  and  consider  that  a  week's  life  is 
run  out  since  I  writ.  But  if  I  ask  myself  what  I  have 
done  in  the  last  watch  or  would  do  in  the  next,  I  can 
say  nothing;  if  I  say  that  I  have  passed  it  without 
hurting  any,  so  may  the  spider  in  my  window.  The 
primitive  monks  were  excusable  in  their  retirings  and 
inclosures  of  themselves;  for  even  of  them  every  one 
cultivated  his  own  garden  and  orchard,  that  is,  his 
soul  and  body,  by  meditation  and  manufactures ;  and 
they  sought  the  world  no  more  since  they  consumed 
none  of  her  sweetness,  nor  begot  others  to  burden 
her.  But  for  me,  if  I  were  able  to  husband  all  my 
time  so  thriftily  as  not  only  not  to  wound  my  soul 
in  a  minute  by  actual  sin,  but  not  to  rob  and  cozen 
her  by  giving  any  part  to  pleasure  or  business,  but 
to  bestow  it  all  upon  her  in  meditation,  yet  even  in 
that  I  should  wound  her  more  and  contract  another 
guiltiness;  as  trie  eagle  were  very  unnatural,  if,  be- 
cause she  is  able  to  do  it,  she  should  perch  a  whole 
day  upon  a  tree,  staring  in  contemplation  of  the 
majesty  and  glory  of  the  sun,  and  let  her  young 
eaglets  starve  in  the  nest." 

From  the  time  Donne  entered  the  church — he  was 
then  forty-two  years  old — there  was  not  a  moment's 
doubt  about  his  reputation  or  his  future  prospects. 


34  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

He  advanced  from  preferment  to  preferment,  and 
at  last  reached  the  high  position  of  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's,  which  he  filled  till  his  death.  That  he  was 
happy  would  be  too  much  to  say.  His  Christian 
faith  was  never  shaken,  but  the  feverish  restless- 
ness of  his  nature  and  his  constant  brooding  on  the 
sins  of  the  past  cut  him  off  from  any  settled  peace 
in  his  religion.  In  1617  his  wife  died.  The  blow 
was  severe,  and  he  never  recovered  from  it.  Even 
then  he  was  worn  and  broken  in  health,  and  his  let- 
ters are  full,  not  of  complaint,  but  of  reference  to 
the  weakness  and  weariness  that  hung  over  him  like 
a  cloud.  "I  am  not  alive  because  I  have  not  had 
enough  to  kill  me,  but  because  it  pleases  God  to 
pass  me  through  many  infirmities  before  He  takes 
me,  either  by  those  particular  remembrances  to  bring 
me  to  a  particular  repentance,  or  by  them  to  give 
me  hope  of  his  particular  mercies  in  heaven."  Yet 
he  battled  on  for  fourteen  years  more,  indomitable 
in  devotion  to  the  cause  he  had  undertaken  to  serve, 
indomitable  in  love,  indomitable  in  hope,  though  his 
hope  might  seem  at  times  a  little  shadowy  and  for- 
lorn. 

He  performed  the  duties  of  his  office  till  the  end, 
and  his  last  sermon,  a  solemn  discourse  on  the  solemn 
text,  "To  God  the  Lord  belong  the  issues  of  death," 
was  delivered  when  he  was  so  feeble  that  many 
people  said  he  was  preaching  at  his  own  funeral. 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  35 

He  died  on  the  last  day  of  March,  in  the  year 
1631. 

Before  leaving  the  biographical  part  of  my  sub- 
ject, I  must  quote  from  Walton  one  striking  anec- 
dote : — 

"Dr.  Donne,  by  the  persuasion  of  Dr.  Fox,  easily 
yielded  at  this  very  time  to  have  a  monument  made 
for  him;  but  Dr.  Fox  undertook  not  to  persuade 
him  how  or  what  monument  it  should  be;  that  was 
left  to  Dr.  Donne  himself. 

"A  monument  being  resolved  upon,  Dr.  Donne 
sent  for  a  carver  to  make  for  him  in  wood  the  figure 
of  an  urn,  giving  him  directions  for  the  compass 
and  height  of  it,  and  to  bring  with  him  a  board  of 
the  just  height  of  his  body.  These  being  got,  then, 
without  delay,  a  choice  painter  was  got  to  be  in  readi- 
ness to  draw  his  picture,  which  was  taken  as  follow- 
eth.  Several  charcoal  fires  being  first  made  in  his 
large  study,  he  brought  with  him  into  that  place  his 
winding-sheet  in  his  hand;  and  having  put  off  all 
his  clothes,  had  this  sheet  put  on  him,  and  so  tied 
with  knots  at  his  head  and  feet,  and  his  hands  so 
placed  as  dead  bodies  are  usually  fitted  to  be 
shrouded,  and  put  into  their  coffin  or  grave.  Upon 
this  urn  he  thus  stood  with  his  eyes  shut  with  so 
much  of  the  sheet  turned  aside  as  might  show  his 
lean,  pale,  and  deathlike  face,  which  was  purposely 
turned  toward  the  east,  from  whence  he  expected  the 


36  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

second  coming  of  his  and  our  Saviour  Jesus.  In 
this  posture  he  was  drawn  at  his  just  height;  and 
when  the  picture  was  fully  finished,  he  caused  it  to 
be  set  by  his  bedside,  where  it  continued  and  be- 
came his  hourly  object  till  his  death." 

It  would  be  unjust  to  Donne  to  make  no  mention 
of  his  prose  writings  even  in  an  essay  devoted  to  his 
poetry.  In  quantity  his  prose  far  exceeds  his  verse, 
and  the  substance  of  it,  though  very  different  from 
that  of  his  poems,  and  certainly  far  less  interesting 
to  the  general  reader,  is  perhaps  quite  as  much 
marked  by  his  peculiar  qualities  of  passion  and  in- 
tensity. Sermons  form  the  bulk  of  Donne's  prose 
work.  He  has  been  accused  of  preaching  with  the 
jingle  and  word-play  that  are  said  to  injure  his 
poetry.  On  this  point  Coleridge  remarks :  "I  have, 
and  that  most  carefully,  read  Dr.  Donne's  sermons, 
and  find  none  of  these  jingles.  The  great  art  of  the 
orator,  to  make  whatever  he  talks  of  appear  of  im- 
portance,— this,  indeed,  Donne  has  effected  with  con- 
summate skill."  Elizabethan  sermons  are  tedious 
reading;  but  I  do  not  see  how  one  can  go  through  a 
sermon  of  Donne's  without  agreeing  with  Coleridge. 
I  can  recommend  no  better  specimen  for  the  reader's 
perusal  than  the  magnificent  passage  quoted  by  Mr. 
A.  H.  Bullen  in  his  introduction  to  the  works  of 
Marston. 

Donne  wrote  other  prose  besides  sermons,  though 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  37 

most  of  it  is  religious.  One  exception,  composed  in 
his  younger  days,  is  his  "Biathanatos,"  an  essay  in 
which  he  attempts  to  prove  that  suicide  is  not  in 
every  case  unlawful.  The  book  was  not  published 
till  after  his  death. 


II 


I  have  alluded  to  Donne's  great  reputation  among 
his  contemporaries.  He  was  in  many  ways  a  typi- 
cal Elizabethan,  and  his  fellows  recognised  him  as 
such.  The  reaction  from  this  opinion  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  was  natural.  Pope  admired  Donne's 
satires;  but  he  considered  it  necessary  to  polish  and 
practically  rewrite  them  before  presenting  them  to 
the  delicate  palates  of  his  own  public.  Johnson's 
opinion  I  have  already  referred  to.  The  great  censor 
used  Donne  as  a  sort  of  scapegoat  for  Cowley,  brack- 
eting the  two  together  as  representatives  of  the  meta- 
physical school  of  poets.  This  unintelligible  epi- 
thet was  happily  chosen  to  unite  two  writers  who 
have  as  little  as  possible  in  common.  Unfortu- 
nately Johnson  did  not  himself  define  the  name. 
"The  metaphysical  poets,"  he  says,  "were  men  of 
learning,  and  to  show  their  learning  was  their  whole 
endeavour."  But  may  not  one  be  learned  without 
being  metaphysical  ?  So  many  men  have  been  meta- 
physical without  being  learned!  An  ingenious  de- 


38  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

fence  of  this  appellation  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  El- 
wes's  "Life  of  Pope."  Donne  and  his  fellows,  Mr. 
Elwes  argues,  and,  indeed,  the  Elizabethans  gen- 
erally, inherited  the  philosophy  of  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen.  From  them  they  got  their  hair-splitting, 
wire-drawing  subtlety,  from  them,  also,  their  strange, 
uncouth  conception  of  the  natural  world.  If  this 
was  the  case,  Johnson  was  above  all  things  happy 
in  the  word  he  chose.  It  does  not  take  much  to 
upset  this  theory,  even  if  there  is  a  grain  of  truth 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  The  conclusions  Mr.  Elwes 
draws  show  that  there  must  be  a  fallacy.  The  great 
defect  of  this  metaphysical  poetry — so  he  goes  on — 
was  its  separation  from  nature,  and  to  return  to 
nature  was  the  triumph  achieved  by  the  school  of 
Pope.  Did  any  one  ever  before  hold  up  the  poetry 
of  Pope  as  the  mirror  of  nature*?  The  most  obscure 
and  elaborate  poem  of  Donne  strikes  more  deeply 
into  the  truths  of  nature  and  the  heart  of  man  than 
the  most  brilliant  production  of  the  clever  rhymer 
of  Twickenham. 

If  Mr.  Elwes  had  said  "taste"  instead  of  "na- 
ture" he  would  have  had  reason  on  his  side.  Good 
taste,  which  was  the  merit  of  Pope  and  Addison,  was 
wofully  lacking  not  only  to  Donne,  but  to  the 
Elizabethans  generally.  It  was  this  want  of  meas- 
ure, of  a  decent  reasonableness,  which  offended 
Johnson,  and  made  him  stand  a  little  on  his  guard, 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  39 

even  against  Shakespeare.  Good  taste,  the  love  of 
rounded  and  flawless  beauty,  Donne  did  not  possess, 
nor  did  Cowley;  but  here  the  resemblance  between 
them  ends.  The  disregard  of  perfect  clearness  and 
Attic  simplicity  takes  various  forms  among  the  dif- 
ferent Elizabethan  writers.  There  is  the  careless, 
joyous  overflow  of  imaginative  richness,  which  shows 
itself,  influenced  more  or  less  by  foreign  pedantry, 
in  the  earlier  poets,  in  Sidney's  "Arcadia,"  in  the 
novels  of  Lyly,  Lodge,  and  Greene,  in  Shakespeare's 
plays  of  the  first  period.  Secondly,  there  is  the  habit 
of  making  up  for  deep,  strong  feeling  by  the  use  of 
far-fetched,  frigid  conceits;  this  is  more  common 
with  the  later  writers,  Crashaw,  Habington,  Cowley 
especially;  Donne  is  by  no  means  wholly  free  from 
it.  Thirdly,  there  is  a  strangeness,  an  appearance 
of  labour,  resulting  from  the  intense,  crowding  en- 
ergy of  the  poet's  thought,  an  energy  that  cannot 
stop  to  arrange -its  expressions,  to  choose  its  figures, 
that  strikes  the  irpn  at  a  white  heat,  moulds  it,  often 
awkwardly,  but  always  leaves  it  with  a  stamp  of 
power;  I  cannot  propose  a  better  instance  of  this 
than  some  parts — only  some  parts — of  Shakespeare 
and  almost  the  whole  of  Donne.  Of  course,  these 
are  all  forms  of  one  tendency  manifesting  itself  in 
different  temperaments;  but  Donne's  was  a  differ- 
ent temperament  from  that  of  Sidney  on  the  one 
hand  and  that  of  Cowley  on  the  other.  The  es- 


40  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

sence  of  his  poetical  gift,  the  essence  of  his  moral 
character,  was  effort,  struggle.  No  one  could  be 
further  removed  than  he  from  such  simple  sweet- 
ness as  that  of  Spenser.  Donne  was  always  at  war 
with  the  elements  of  style,  bending  them,  rending 
them,  straining  them,  to  match  the  sweeping  tide 
of  his  thoughts  and  passions.  Sometimes  he  con- 
quered, and  soared  into  the  highest  heaven  of  poetry ; 
sometimes  he  was  worsted  and  sank  to  depths  lower 
than  the  lowest  of  prose.  The  effort  he  makes  in 
the  latter  case,  the  distortions  he  produces,  are  pain- 
ful, like  the  scratching  of  a  pin  on  glass,  as  in  the 
hideous  exaggeration  so  often  quoted : — 

"Oh  do  not  die,  for  I  shall  hate 

All  women  so,  when  thou  art  gone, 
That  thee  I  shall  not  celebrate, 

When  I  remember  thou  wast  one." 

Alas!  it  is  needless  to  bring  forward  further  ex- 
amples. 

Another  defect  of  Donne's,  more  real  than  his 
conceits,  is  his  difficulty.  Cowley  is  simple.  Con- 
ceits are  scattered  over  the  natural  movement  of  his 
writing  like  red  knots  on  a  white  garment.  Donne 
is  often  unintelligible,  wantonly  so.  He  flings  down 
his  ideas  before  you  like  a  tangled  skein ;  you  meddle 
with  it  at  your  peril.  In  this,  also,  he  has  some 
affinity  with  Shakespeare.  One  can  take,  almost  at 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  41 

random,   from  Shakespeare's  later  plays,  passages 
that  require  very  careful  reading  :  — 

"A  strange  fellow  here 
Writes  me  that  man,  how  dearly  ever  parted, 
How  much  in  having,  or  without,  or  in, 
Cannot  make  boast  to  have  that  which  he  hath, 
Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes,  but  by  reflection; 
As  when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others 
Heat  them  and  they  retort  that  heat  again 
To  the  first  giver." 


Donne,  however,  writes  in  this  way  through  whole 
poems  and  with  infinitely  less  art  than  his  great  con- 
temporary, who,  when  he  used  such  a  style,  had  his 
own  ends  to  serve.  Donne  employed  it  indifferently 
on  profound  philosophical  subjects  and  on  what  he 
meant  to  be  the  most  rapid  and  graceful  lyrics.  Of 
the  latter  I  quote  a  specimen  :  — 


yet  to  prove 
I  thought  there  was  some  deity  in  love, 

So  did  I  reverence  and  gave 
Worship  as  atheists  at  their  dying  hour 
Call,  what  they  cannot  name,  an  unknown  power, 

As  ignorantly  did   I  crave: 

Thus  when 
Things  not  yet  known  are  coveted  by  men, 

Our  desires  give  them  fashion  and  so 
As  they  wax  lesser,  fall,  as  they  size,  grow." 


42  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Much  of  Donne's  best  writing  is  contained  in  his 
lyrics,  but  we  must  not  judge  them  by  the  pure  and 
delicate  ease  of  the  exquisite  work  Mr.  Bullen  has 
given  us  in  his  "Lyrics  from  Elizabethan  Song 
Books." 

Still  another  reason  why  Donne  is  little  read  now- 
adays is  that  he  is  extremely  coarse, — coarse  is  the 
word,  rather  than  sensual,  at  least  for  most  of  his 
poems.  He  never  shrinks  from  any  expression  that 
throws  light  on  his  meaning.  No  modern  realist,  no 
Frenchman,  could  go  further.  Shakespeare  pales 
beside  him, — even  Ben  Jonson.  Literature  is  full 
of  anomalies:  Donne,  the  coarsest  of  Elizabethan 
poets,  was  the  most  intensely,  profoundly  Chris- 
tian in  spirit,  the  most  serious,  the  most  earnest,  the 
highest  in  his  standards  and  aims.  Oh,  irony  of 


genius ! 


in 


Donne  is  always  regarded  as  an  example  of  rough 
and  jarring  metre.  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  the  "meta- 
physical poets"  that  "instead  of  writing  poetry  they 
only  wrote  verses,  and  very  often  such  verses  as 
stood  the  test  of  the  finger  better  than  that  of  the 
ear";  while  the  earlier  and  greater  Johnson  told 
Drummond  "that  Donne,  for  not  keeping  of  ac- 
cent, deserved  hanging."  It  would  be  foolish  to 
deny  the  extreme,  absurd  harshness  of  many  of 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  43 

Donne's  lines.  The  defect  is  so  evident  that  it 
seems  as  if  Donne  himself  must  have  been  well  aware 
of  it,  especially  as  he  often  shows  an  exquisite  sense 
of  rhythm.  This  is  no  excuse.  It  does,  however, 
suggest  that  he  had  an  artistic  aim  in  the  very  halt 
of  his  verses.  The  conclusion  is  strengthened  when 
we  find  that  his  satires  are  rougher  than  his  lyrics 
and  serious  pieces.  As  might  be  expected  with  so 
difficult  a  writer,  the  text  of  early  editions  is  ex- 
tremely corrupt,  which  accounts  for  some  of  his  met- 
rical irregularities. 

Yet  nothing  can  palliate  Donne's  wanton  disre- 
gard of  the  laws  of  English  versification.  Coleridge 
said :  "Read  even  Donne's  satires  as  he  meant  them 
to  be  read,  and  as  the  sense  and  passion  demand,  and 
you  will  find  in  the  lines  a  manly  harmony."  This 
may  be  true  of  the  continuous  effect  in  long  pas- 
sages ;  but  it  is  not  true  of  single  lines. 

"A  subtle  statesman  may  gather  of  that." 

"His  passion^  and  the  world's  troubles;  rock  me." 

i 

Words  are  split  to  make  a  rhyme,  accents  are  shaken 
over  the  verse  from  a  pepper-box,  the  reader  thinks 
himself  adrift  in  chaos.  Yet  it  would  be  simplicity 
to  confound  Donne's  rhythm  with  that  of  an  in- 
competent poetaster.  He  is  never  commonplace, 
never  monotonous,  never  tame.  Beneath  his  appar- 


44  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ent  carelessness  there  is  profound  skill  in  the  varia- 
tion of  pauses,  in  the  management  of  periods.  Mr. 
Swinburne  has  well  said  the  verse  of  Donne  is 
nigged,  the  verse  of  Jonson  stiff,  meaning  just  this, 
that  Donne's  roughness  is  mainly  intentional  and 
calculated  to  contribute  to  the  force  and  effect  of  the 
idea  conveyed. 

In  truth,  when  the  merits  of  Donne's  versification 
are  considered,  he  will  be  a  bold  man  that  will  ven- 
ture to  make  excuses  for  him.  I  do  not  know  that 
any  English  poet  has  surpassed  the  vigour  of  move- 
ment in  even  the  harshest  of  his  satires,  though  they 
are  difficult  to  quote. 

"Sir,  though  (I  thank  God  for  it)   I  do  hate 
All  this  town  perfectly,  yet  in  every  state 
There  are  some  found  so  villainously  best 
That  hate  towards  that  breeds  pity  towards  the  rest." 

"Words,  words,  which  would  tear 
The  tender  labyrinth  of  a  soft  maid's  ear 
More,  more  than  ten  Slavonians'  scolding,  more 
Than  when  winds  in  our  ruined  abbeys  roar." 

And  in  Donne's  poems,  everywhere,  there  are  lines 
of  extraordinary  rhythmic  power,  like  the  following 
from  one  of  his  "Holy  Sonnets" : 

"At  the  round  earth's  imagined  corners  blow 
Your  trumpets,  Angels,  and  arise,  arise 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  45 

From  death  you  numberless  infinities 

Of  souls  and  to  your  scattered  bodies  go." 

But  Donne's  verse  has  beauty  and  sweetness  as  well 
as  force.  He  can  tune  it  at  times,  in  short  passages, 
to  an  exquisite  subtlety  of  delicate  music: — 

"So  may  thy  mighty,  amazing  beauty  move 
Envy  in  all  women  and  in  all  men  love." 

Take  also  the  following  lines  from  "The  Calm;" 
the  harshness  of  sound  and  sense  in  the  first  two 
contrasts  strikingly  with  the  grace  and  melancholy 
cadence  of  the  last: — 

"As  water  did  in  storms,  now  pitch  runs  out 
As  lead  when  a  fired  church  becomes  one  spout, — 
And  all  our  beauty,  all  our  trim  decays, 
Like  court  removings  or  like  ended  plays."  * 

Donne's  lyrics,  especially,  are  full  of  evidence  that 
his  fault  in  verse-writing  was  carelessness,  not  lack 
of  ear.  Take  such  little  turns  as  this: — 

"If  tKou  find'st  one,  let  me  know; 

Swch  a  pilgrimage  were  sweet," 

or  the  whole  song  of  which  the  following  is  the  first 
stanza :- — 

1  Curiously  enough,  the  last  line  occurs,  with  slight  variations 
in  Jonson's  New  Inn  (iv.  3).  This  play  must  have  been  written 
long  after  Donne's  poem,  so  that  he  could  not  have  been  the  bor- 
rower. Jonson  greatly  admired  "The  Calm." 


46  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"Sweetest  Love,  I  do  not  go 

For  weariness  of  thee, 
Nor  in  hope  the  world  can  show 

A  fitter  love  for  me; 

But  since  that  I 
Must  die  at  last,  'tis  best 
Thus  to  use  myself  in  jest, 

Thus  a  feigned  death  to  die." 

Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  Donne's  peculiar  ex- 
cellence is  not  metrical.  The  ruggedness,  the  force 
that  stamps  his  verse  is  far  more  characteristic  of 
his  thought.  He  ransacks  all  nature  for  an  image 
that  will  not  dull  the  intensity  of  his  feelings,  and  he 
thus  falls  into  the  vagaries  that  horrified  Dr.  John- 
son. But  the  originality  and  startling  effectiveness 
of  his  figures  have  never  been  surpassed.  He  darts 
a  flash  of  lightning  on  his  object,  strips  it  of  all  con- 
ventional trapping,  with  a  grasp  recalling  Dante  in 
power,  if  not  in  simplicity.  Here  is  a  most  Dan- 
tesque  and  terrible  simile  from  the  "Second  Anni- 
versary :" — 

"As  sometimes  in  a  beheaded  man, 
Though  at  those  two  red  seas  which  freely  ran 
One  from  the  trunk,  another  from  the  head, 
His  soul  has  sailed  to  her  eternal  bed, 
His  eyes  will  twinkle  and  his  tongue  will  roll, 
As  though  he  beckoned  and  called  back  his  soul, 
He  grasps  his  hands  and  he  pulls  up  his  feet, 
And  seems  to  reach  and  to  step  forth  to  meet 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  47 

His  soul;  when  all  these  motions  which  we  saw 
Are  but  as  ice  that  crackles  at  a  thaw; 
Or  as  a  lute,  which  in  moist  weather,  rings 
Her  knell  alone  by  cracking  of  her  strings; 
So  struggles  this  dead  world  now  she  is  gone: 
For  there  is  motion  in  corruption." 

Beside  which  place  the  following,  with  its  subtle  and 
melancholy  charm: — 

"But  when  old  age  their  beauty  hath  in  chase 
And  ploughs  up  furrows  in  their  once  smooth  face, 
Then  they  become  forsaken  and  do  show 
Like  stately  abbeys  ruined  long  ago." 

Let  me  in  passing  point  out  that  in  both  these  pas- 
sages the  rhythm  is  striking  as  well  as  the  thought. 
Donne's  originality  and  power  show  not  only  in 
elaborate  figures,  but  in  little  touches  constantly  oc- 
curing.  In  "The  Anagram:" 

"If  we  might  put  the  letters  but  one  way 
In  that  lean  dearth  of  words  what  could  we  say?" 

In  the  "Second  Anniversary:" 

"Shalt  thou  not  find  a  spungy,  slack  divine 
Drink  and  suck  in  the  instructions  of  great  men 
And  for  the  word  of  God  vent  them  again?" 

From  a  letter  to  the  Lady  Gary : 

"For  when,  through  tasteless,  flat  humility, 
In  dough-baked  men  some  harmlessness  we  see, 
'Tis  but  his  phlegm  that's  virtuous  and  not  he." 


48  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

The  same  qualities,  vigour  and  intensity  rather 
than  tenderness  or  grace,  mark  Donne's  description 
of  nature.  He  did,  indeed,  write  of 

"The  household  bird  with  the  red  stomacher," 

and  with  Shakespearian  sweetness  of 

"Lilies,  hyacinths,  and  your  gorgeous  birth 
Of  all  pied  flowers  which  diaper  the  earth;" 

but  he  draws  generally  with  a  pen  of  iron,  and  his 
landscape  has  a  taste  of  Salvator.  The  companion 
pieces  called  "The  Storm"  and  "The  Calm"  are  good 
instances.  In  the  latter,  a  most  remarkable  poem, 
it  is  interesting  to  compare  his 

"And  in  one  place  lay 
Feathers  and  dust  to-day  and  yesterday," 

with  Keats's 

"Not  so  much  life  as  on  a  summer's  day 
Lifts  not  one  light  seed  from  the  feathered  grass, 
But  where  the  dead  leaf  fell  there  did  it  rest." 

The  traits  we  have  hitherto  studied  in  Donne  must 
make  it  evident  that  he  would  succeed  in  satire,  and 
his  writing  in  that  kind  is,  indeed,  masterly.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  settle  whether  he  was  the  first  of 
English  satirists  in  date:  for  quality,  no  other  can 
be  placed  beside  him  in  his  own  line.  His  subjects 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  49 

do  not  require  the  broad  canvases  of  Dryden,  nor 
has  he  Dryden's  lucidity  and  rapidity.  But  even 
Dryden  cannot  approach  him  in  power,  and  he  makes 
Pope  seem  dry  and  tame.  Of  his  own  contempora- 
ries Hall  is  far  more  conventional,  Wither  thinner, 
though  certainly  clearer.  Marston  has  a  touch  of 
Donne's  force,  but  is  more  grotesque  and  laboured. 
His  satires  are  difficult  from  affectation.  Donne's, 
like  all  his  work,  are  moulded  directly  and  naturally 
by  the  stern  and  tumultuous  cast  of  his  thought.  He 
ploughs  his  way  along,  regardless  of  obstacles,  tear- 
ing up  language  and  metre  by  the  roots ;  but  his  re- 
sult is  unequalled.  Obscurity  and  coarseness  will 
keep  his  satires  from  ever  becoming  popular,  but 
no  one  has  studied  them  carefully  without  being 
repaid.  How  the  characters  stand  out !  With  what 
energy  he  lashes  the  vices  and  follies  around  him! 
Here  is  his  account  of  an  interview  with  a  court 
bore : — 

"I  tell  him  of  new  plays: 
He  takes  my  hand  and  as  a  still  which  stays 
A  semibrief  'tw*ixt  each  drop,  he  niggardly, 
As  loath  to  enrich  me,  so  tells  many  a  lie 
More  than  ten  Hollinsheds,  or  Halls  or  Stows, 
Of  trivial  household  trash  he  knows:  he  knows 
When  the  queen  frowned  or  smiled;  and  he  knows  what 
A  subtle  statesman  may  gather  of  that. 
He  knows  who  loves  whom;  and  who  by  poison 
Hastes  to  an  office's  reversion. 


50  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

He  knows  who  hath  sold  his  land  and  now  doth  beg 
A  license  old  iron,  boots,  shoes,  and  egg- 
Shells  to  transport.  .  .  . 

And  wiser  than  all  us, 
He  knows  what  lady  is  not  painted." 

All  this  is  lightened  and  enlivened  by  keen  wit.    He 
comments  thus  on  a  young  man  of  fashion : — 

"His  schools 

Are  ordinaries  where  civil  men  seem  fools; 
Or  are  for  being  there;  his  best  books,  plays, 
Where  meeting  godly  scenes,  perhaps  he  prays. 
His  first  set  prayer  was  for  his  father  ill 
And  sick — that  he  might  die;  that  had,  until 
The  lands  were  gone,  he  troubled  God  no  more." 

And.  here  is  a  scrap  of  one  of  his  dialogues : — 

"Now  leaps  he  upright,  jogs  me,  and  cries,  'Do  you  see 
Yonder  well-favoured  youth?'    'Which?'    'Yea!  'Tis  he 
That  dances  so  divinely.'     'O!'  said  I, 
'Stand  still,  must  you  dance  too  for  company?' 
He  drooped." 

This  admirable  comic  gift  is  shown  not  only  in 
Donne's  satires,  but  in  almost  all  his  poems,  and 
atones  for  many  of  his  extravagances.  Often,  if  you 
look  carefully,  you  can  see  a  half  smile  on  his  face 
that  you  should  take  him  seriously.  The  richness 
and  variety  of  his  humour  appear  in  such  poems  as 
"Woman's  Constancy,"  "The  Triple  Fool"  with  its 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  51 

"Who  are  a  little  wise  the  best  fools  be," 

"Love's  Legacy,"  and  in  flashes  everywhere.  Some- 
thing in  this  mingling  of  mirth  with  passion,  this 
swift  interchange  of  grief  and  laughter,  recalls 
Heine;  but  Donne  had  nothing  of  the  cynic  about 
him.  The  thing  above  all  others  that  makes  him 
beautiful  and  lovable  is  his  tenderness,  which  sepa- 
rates him  absolutely  from  the  mockery  of  Heine,  and 
still  more  from  the  savage  invective  of  satirists  like 
Marston,  with  whom  I  but  now  compared  him. 

IV 

As  a  poet  and  as  a  man  Donne  does,  indeed,  rise 
far  above  mere  railers  at  humanity  and  life.  His 
smile  is  that  of  sympathy,  not  that  of  scorn.  His 
philosophy  was  too  deep,  his  nature  too  serious,  to 
allow  him  ever  to  be  a  trifler,  jester,  scoffer.  His 
high  intellectual  earnestness  never  leaves  him  even 
in  matters  that  seem  light  and  trifling.  He  never 
shuns  the  struggle  with  great  problems.  One  does 
not  go  to  poets  hor  to  Elizabethans  for  consistent 
philosophical  reasoning;  but  in  acute,  thoughtful, 
and  far-reaching  comment  on  human  life  Donne  is 
unsurpassed.  Instances  of  this  are  best  taken  from 
his  "Verse-Letters,"  where  the  dignity  of  tone  is 
least  often  marred  by  conceit  and  strangeness.  Here 
is  one  from  a  letter  to  Sir  Henry  Wotton : — 


52  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"Be  then  thine  own  home  and  in  thyself  dwell; 
Inn  anywhere,  continuance  maketh  Hell. 
And  seeing  the  snail,  which  everywhere  doth  roam, 
Carrying  his  own  house  still,  is  still  at  home, 
Follow  (for  he  is  easy-paced)   this  snail, 
Be  thy  own  palace,  or  all  the  world's  thy  jail." 

And  another,  to  the  same  effect : 

"Seek  we  then  ourselves  in  ourselves;  for  as 
Men  force  the  sun  with  much  more  force  to  pass 
By  gathering  his  beams  with  a  crystal  glass, 

"So  we,  if  we  into  ourselves  will  turn, 
Blowing  our  sparks  of  virtue,  may  outburn 
The  straw  which  doth  about  our  hearts  sojourn." 

Above  all,  there  is  the  noble  letter  to  Sir  Henry 
Goodyere.  The  following  introductory  stanza  is 
not  above  the  rest: — 

"Who  makes  the  last  a  pattern  for  next  year 
Turns  no  new  leaf  but  still  the  same  things  reads, 
Seen  things  he  sees,  heard  things  again  doth  hear, 
And  makes  his  life  but  like  a  pair  of  beads." 

Intellect,  thought,  is  certainly  predominant  in 
Donne.  It  was  predominant  in  all  the  Elizabethan 
poets.  All  of  them,  unless  we  except  Spenser,  were 
ready  to  wander  off  in  endless  deserts  of  ingenious 
speculation.  The  very  titles  of  their  poems — "A 
Treatise  of  Monarchy,"  "Musophilus,"  "The  Im- 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  53 

mortality  of  the  Soul,"  "The  Anatomy  of  the  Soul" 
— show  a  taste  for  abstraction,  not  to  say  pedantry. 
But  intellectual  as  they  are,  they  all  have  imagina- 
tion, passion.  Compare  Donne  with  Emerson  and 
this  point  becomes  clear.  Emerson  has  no  greater 
fancy  for  epigram,  for  cleverness,  than  the  older 
poet,  but  he  is  always  cold,  never  touched,  fired, 
carried  away.  Donne  at  his  strangest  is  stung  with 
intense  feeling;  he  blends  beauty  and  grace  with  his 
harshest  rhythms,  with  the  subtlest  refinements  of 
his  thought.  This  is  his  supreme  excellence,  the 
merit  that  makes  one  overlook  all  his  faults,  if  it 
does  not  outweigh  them.  This  lifts  him  a  whole 
heaven  above  the  ease  of  Waller  and  the  sweetness 
of  Cowley.  He  is  real,  he  is  alive.  In  satire,  in 
elegy,  in  love  lyric,  in  hymn,  his  words  burn,  and 
the  reader  who  feels  cannot  but  be  kindled  by  them. 
This  intensity  is  not  found  in  all  Donne's  poems 
alike.  It  is  not,  I  think,  found  so  perfectly  in  the  two 
celebrated  "Anniversaries,"  written  in  memory  of 
Elizabeth  Drury,  as  in  some  others  shorter  and  less 
known.  The  first  "Anniversary,"  especially,  does 
not  give  the  most  favourable  view  of  Donne's  sin- 
gular genius.  It  was  composed  to  eulogise  a  lady 
Donne  had  never  known;  it  is  consequently  general 
and  full  of  expressions  that  are  exceedingly  repul- 
sive. The  second  is  much  better,  in  parts  giving 
Donne  at  his  best,  as  in  the  wonderful  lines : 


54  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheeks  and  so  distinctly  wrought 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought." 

Still,  even  in  this  great  poem  there  is  a  good  deal 
that  is  difficult  and  affected. 

The  same  faults  mar  Donne's  only  attempt  at 
narrative,  the  fragmentary  "Progress  of  the  Soul." 

The  "Elegies"  and,  above  all,  the  "Lyrics"  are 
Donne's  most  satisfactory  productions.  The  ele- 
gies are,  unfortunately,  difficult  to  quote,  though 
who  could  pass  by  the  charming  "Refusal  to  Al- 
low His  Young  Wife  to  Accompany  Him  Abroad," 
or  the  "Autumnal,"  or  the  one  "Upon  the  Loss  of 
His  Mistress'  Chain,"  with  its  keen  wit  and  its 
Shakespearean  line: — 

"So  lean,  so  pale,  so  lame,  so  ruinous?" 

But  I  confess,  of  all  Donne's  works  his  lyrics  are  to 
me  the  most  delightful  in  their  wisdom,  their  hu- 
mour, their  passion,  their  varying  play  of  sense  and 
sound.  Has  any  one  ever  flashed  the  light  of  imag- 
ination so  vividly  upon  the  depths  of  feeling?  Now 
he  does  this  by  a  simple,  almost  careless  touch,  as 
in  that  line  of  the  "Relic"  so  much  praised  by  Low- 
ell, which  describes  the  openers  of  the  poet's  grave 
as  finding 

"A  bracelet  of  bright  hair  about  the  bone" — 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  55 

just  that  one  word  "bright"  gleams  like  a  star;  or  as 
in  "Love's  Legacy:" — 

.  "And  all  your  graces  no  more  use  will  have 
Than  a  sun-dial  in  a  grave." 

Now  he  twists  a  wreath  of  faint,  sweet,  strange 
thoughts  about  a  subject  almost  grotesque,  which 
yet  under  his  hands  becomes  intensely  real,  as  in 
"Air  and  Angels:" — 

"Ever  thy  hair  for  love  to  work  upon 
Is  much  too  much,  some  fitter  must  be  sought, 
For  nor  in  nothing,  nor  in  things 
Extreme  and  scattering  bright  came  love  in  here; 
Then  as  an  angel  face  and  wings 
Of  air  not  pure  as  it,  yet  pure  doth  wear, 
So  thy  love  may  be  my  lover's  sphere; 
Just  such  disparity 
As  is  'twixt  air  and  angels'  purity, 
'Twixt  woman's  love  and  man's  will  ever  be." 

Now  he  inserts  in  a  poem  made  up  of  curious  sub- 
tleties a  few  lines  of  the  most  solemn  and  touching 
dignity,  like  the  conclusion  of  the  lyrical  "Anni- 
versary :" — 

"Let  us  live  nobly,  and  live,  and  live  again 
Years  and  years  unto  years,  till  we  attain 
To  write  threescore:  this  is  the  second  of  our  reign." 

In  his  lyrics  the  necessity  of  passion  often  saves 
Donne  from  using  conceits,  makes  the  conceits  tol« 


56  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

erable  or  even  impressive  when  they  come.  This  is 
illustrated  by  the  whole  poem  called  "A  Valedic- 
tion of  Tears,"  also  by  the  one  "Upon  Parting  from 
His  Mistress,"  which  contains  in  a  stanza  condemned 
by  Johnson,  but  praised  by  most  critics,  the  compari- 
son of  himself  and  her  to  a  pair  of  compasses : — 

"Thy  soul,  the  fixed  foot,  makes  no  show 
To  move,  but  doth  if  the  other  do. 
And  though  it  in  the  centre  sit, 
Yet  when  the  other  far  doth  roam, 
It  leans  and  hearkens  after  it, 
And  grows  erect  as  that  comes  home." 

One  thing  that  must  be  noticeable  even  in  what 
I  have  already  quoted  from  Donne  is  the  prominence 
through  all  his  poetry  of  death  and  the  grave.  An 
uneasy  curiosity  about  these  matters  is  a  trait  of  the 
Renaissance.  Epicureans  like  Herrick  constantly 
refer  to  them,  sometimes  from  a  sort  of  fascination, 
sometimes  merely  to  enhance  the  zest  of  present 
pleasure.  But  with  Donne  it  is  far  different.  He 
was  no  Epicurean,  no  Pagan;  he  was  only  in  part  a 
child  of  the  Renaissance.  His  wildest  verse  bears 
the  mark  of  those  laborious  years  spent  in  compar- 
ing the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant 
churches.  His  entrance  into  the  ministry  was  no 
abrupt  change  or  conversion.  One  is  sure  that  he 
never  plunged  carelessly  into  mad  riot,  as  did  Mar- 
lowe and  Greene.  If  he  tried  violent  pleasures,  it 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  57 

was  uneasily,  reluctantly,  half  in  bravado,  despair 
at  the  uncertainty  and  vanity  of  anything  else.  No 
other  English  poet  has  ever  been  so  penetrated  with 
the  restlessness,  the  wretchedness  of  life  as  Donne. 
In  his  "Devotions"  he  says,  "Man  hath  no  centre 
but  misery."  In  his  letters  he  appears  always  oc- 
cupied with  death,  almost  in  love  with  it.  The  same 
feeling  is  shown  in  that  curious  anecdote  about  his 
monument.  One  finds  it  again  and  again  in  his  most 
passionate  poems : — 

"I  hate  extremes;  yet  I  had  rather  stay 
With  graves  than  cradles  to  wear  out  a  day." 

See,  above  all,  the  strange  and  sombre  lyric  entitled 
"A  Nocturnal  on  St.  Lucy's  Day." 

No  Schopenhauer  or  Leopardi  could  more  urge  the 
imperfection  of  our  earthly  life  than  Donne,  but 
the  difference  is  that  Donne  was  a  Christian.  I 
should,  perhaps,  make  some  allusion  here  to  Donne's 
especially  religious  poetry.  It  has  the  same  energy 
and  passion  as»his  other  work.  Take,  for  example, 
the  striking  "Hymn  to  Christ  on  the  Author's  Last 
Going  into  Germany,"  of  which  I  quote  the  first 
stanza  with  its  movement  swift  and  overwhelming 
as  the  mystical  devotion  it  illustrates : — 

"In  what  torn  ship  soever  I  embark, 
That  ship  shall  be  my  emblem  of  thy  ark; 


58  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

What  sea  soever  swallow  me,  that  flood 
Shall  be  to  me  an  emblem  of  thy  blood. 
Though  thou  with  clouds  of  anger  do  disguise 
Thy  face,  yet  through  that  mask  I  know  those  eyes, 
Which  though  they  turn  away  sometimes,  they  never  will 
despise." 

But  the  intensity  and  profound  earnestness  of  Chris- 
tian thought  belong  to  Donne's  secular  poems  also. 
This  separates  him  not  only  from  modern  pessimists, 
but  from  his  literary  contemporaries,  from  the  se- 
rene naturalism  of  Shakespeare,  from  the  stern  stoi- 
cism of  Milton  and  Marvell.  At  any  rate  his  Chris- 
tianity was  of  a  different  type  from  theirs.  To  him 
the  essence  of  our  life  here  was  struggle  and  war. 
He  never  lost  sight  of  the  goal,  the  star  of  faith 
was  never  over-clouded  for  him;  but  the  flesh  was 
unequal  to  the  spirit.  He  loved  no  eremitical  soli- 
tude. He  moved  amid  the  bustle  and  confusion  of 
cities  and  courts.  He  knew  all  temptations  and  was 
led  astray  by  them.  But  he  always  hated  them,  he 
never  yielded,  never  despaired.  Through  sin  and 
wretchedness  he  fought  his  way  upward,  and  the 
stamp  of  strife  is  left  on  all  he  ever  wrote,  not  only 
on  his  sermons,  but  on  the  freest  of  his  verses;  all 
alike  are  the  passionate  expression  of  one  of  the 
noblest,  tenderest,  broadest,  and  deepest  natures  that 
ever  received  the  subtle  gift  of  genius.  It  is  for  this 
that  Donne  must  remain  pre-eminently  great  to 


THE  POETRY  OF  DONNE  59 

those  who  will  labour  with  him ;  not  for  his  wit,  nor 
his  learning,  nor  his  eccentricity.  He  has  not  the 
ingenious  sanctity  of  Herbert,  nor  the  lark-like  love- 
liness and  bright  simplicity  of  Vaughan,  nor  the  se- 
rene elevation  of  Giles  Fletcher;  but  he  has  the  moral 
dignity  and  grandeur  of  a  soul  which,  not  ignorant 
of  the  wretchedness  of  this  world,  is  yet  forever 
ravished  with  the  love  and  worship  of  the  eternal. 

1892 


Ill 

A  PESSIMIST  POET 


Ill 

A    PESSIMIST    POET 


GIACOMO  LEOPARDI  was  born  on  the  2Qth 
of  June,  1 798,  at  Recanati,  a  small  town  in 
the  March  of  Ancona.  His  father,  Count 
Monaldo,  was  of  an  old  family,  but  not  wealthy.  He 
was  a  scholar  and  an  author,  but  full  of  aristocratic 
prejudice,  and  opposed  to  reform,  either  political 
or  religious.  His  wife  seems  not  to  have  had  much 
influence  over  her  children;  at  least,  they  write  to 
her  and  of  her  with  respect,  but  with  little  affection. 
Giacomo  was  the  eldest  of  the  family.  Brought 
up  in  the  solitude  of  a  provincial  Italian  city,  he 
buried  himself  in  books,  which  alone  offered  him  ac- 
cess to  the  world.  The  account  of  his  youthful  stud- 
ies is  prodigious.  When  fifteen  years  old  he  set 
himself  to  learn  Greek  without  a  teacher,  and  suc- 
ceeded so  well  that  in  the  following  year  he  was  able 
to  write  a  commentary  on  Porphyrius's  "Life  of 
Plotinus."  He  also  made  himself  familiar  with 
Hebrew  and  the  modern  languages,  except  German. 

63 


64  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

These  studies  soon  gained  him  a  name.  One  of 
the  first  results  of  them  was  a  friendship  with  Pietro 
Giordani,  which  lasted  during  Leopardi's  life.  His 
letters  to  Giordani  form  a  large  portion  of  his  cor- 
respondence; and  they  give  us  a  good  idea  of  his 
early  years, — of  the  various  difficulties  he  had  to 
contend  with  in  his  literary  pursuits,  and  of  the 
formation  of  that  peculiar  philosophy  which  is  al- 
ways associated  with  his  name.  In  the  first  place,  his 
enthusiastic  study  had  broken  his  health.  "I  often 
endure  for  many  hours,"  he  writes,  "the  horrible  tor- 
ment of  sitting  with  my  hands  folded."  And  again : 
"Ah,  my  dear  Giordani,  what  do  you  think  I  do 
nowadays*?  Get  up  in  the  morning  late,  because 
now — a  diabolical  state  of  things — I  prefer  sleep- 
ing to  waking.  Then  get  immediately  to  walking 
and  walk  without  ever  opening  my  mouth  or  seeing 
a  book  till  dinner.  After  dinner  walk  likewise  till 
supper;  unless  by  making  a  great  effort,  often  stop- 
ping and  sometimes  giving  up  altogether,  I  man- 
age to  read  for  an  hour." 

Ill-health  was  not  the  only  cause  of  Leopardi's 
melancholy.  He  found  himself  condemned  to  pass 
the  best  years  of  his  life  in  a  small  provincial  town. 
He  was  not  naturally  inclined  to  see  good  in  every- 
thing,— rather,  he  spoiled  every  possibility  of  pres- 
ent pleasure  by  dwelling  on  an  imaginary  future; 
and  his  abuse  of  his  native  place  is  extremely  vio- 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  65 

lent.  "What  is  there  beautiful  in  Recanati?  What 
is  there  that  a  man  would  take  pains  to  see  or  learn4? 
Nothing.  Now,  God  has  made  this  world  of  ours 
so  beautiful,  men  have  made  so  many  beautiful 
things  in  it,  there  are  so  many  men  in  it,  that  any 
one  in  his  senses  burns  to  see  and  know.  The  earth 
is  full  of  wonders,  and  I,  at  eighteen,  must  say,  'In 
this  den  shall  I  live  and  die  where  I  was  born1?'  Do 
you  think  these  desires  can  be  bridled,  that  they  are 
unjust,  tyrannous,  extravagant,  that  it  is  folly  to  be 
dissatisfied  with  seeing  nothing,  to  be  discontented 
with  Recanati*?"  In  this  passage  we  see  Leopardi's 
weakness:  he  was  always  talking  about  love,  he 
was  gentle  and  affectionate  to  his  friends;  yet  he 
was  haughty,  too  forgetful  of  sympathy  and  human 
kindness.  In  the  same  way  he  talked  about  philoso- 
phy and  studied  it;  but  he  never  possessed  that  su- 
preme philosophy  of  life  which  teaches  us  to  take  the 
world  as  we  find  it  and  respect  facts. 

There  was  yet  another  source  of  the  unhappiness 
of  our  poet.  If  the  boy — for  at  this  time  he  was 
hardly  more — had  found  comfort  at  home,  Recanati 
might  have  Deemed  tolerable.  But  his  mother  was 
nothing  to  him;  Count  Monaldo  approved  his  son's 
taste  for  philology,  but  they  differed  on  philosophy 
and  on  politics.  Their  relations  were  altogether  un- 
fortunate, owing  to  misunderstandings  and  to  gen- 
eral incompatibility.  Biographers  at  first  sided  with 


66  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Giacomo.  Of  late  years  some  things  have  come  up 
to  excuse  the  old  Count ;  yet  the  following  sketch  of 
him,  taken  from  his  own  autobiography,  will  show 
what  his  character  was: — 

"The  experience  of  my  whole  life  has  taught  me 
the  truth  of  the  saying — Seneca's,  I  believe — that 
there  is  no  great  intelligence  without  its  dose  of 
madness,  and  I  have  been  surprised  to  see  that  in 
some  corner  of  the  loftiest  mind  there  lurk  incredible 
puerilities.  I  have  made  some  examination  of  my- 
self in  order  to  learn  the  weak  point  of  my  reason, 
and  not  having  found  any,  I  am  tempted  to  believe 
my  mind  superior  to  many,  not  indeed  in  loftiness, 
but  in  balance."  Poverty  obliged  Monaldo  to  deny 
his  son  many  things,  and  Giacomo  was  but  too  ready 
to  assume  a  harsher  motive. 

A  close  affection  bound  the  young  scholar  to  his 
brother  Carlo  and  to  his  sister  Paolina,  who  seem, 
nevertheless,  to  have  been  greatly  his  inferiors.  One 
person  only  in  his  family  might  have  been  really 
helpful  to  him, — his  aunt,  Ferdinanda  Melchiorri, 
who,  unfortunately,  died  when  he  was  twenty-four 
years  old.  The  few  letters  of  hers  which  Signor 
Piergili  has  collected  show  a  mind  of  great  clear- 
ness, a  sensibility  equal  to  Leopardi's,  and  a  calm- 
ness and  resignation  he  was  never  able  to  attain. 
"Little  by  little  we  learn  to  forget  our  miseries  by 
slighting  them  or  by  not  keeping  the  image  of  them 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  67 

forever  before  us;  reason  must  persuade  us  of  this, 
and  we  must  use  reason  for  our  happiness,  not  for 
the  contrary."  You  see  Leopardi  lost  much  when 
he  lost  her. 

The  life  at  Recanati, — living  death  he  would  have 
called  it, — with  its  tedium,  its  fierce  protest  against 
the  tyranny  of  circumstances,  its  idealisation  of  the 
outside  world,  continued  till  the  man's  nature  was 
thoroughly  confirmed  in  a  philosophy  of  defiance. 
The  influence  of  Giordani  had  separated  him  from 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  filled  him  with  liberal 
ideas;  yet  he  never  adopted  these  ideas  with  great 
enthusiasm, — they  were  sweet  illusions,  but  illusions. 

In  1822  he  finally  succeeded  in  getting  away  and 
going  to  Rome.  It  is  pitiful,  even  if  a  little  amus- 
ing, to  see  his  disappointment.  Rome  is  no  better 
than  Recanati,  after  all.  "Speaking  seriously,"  he 
writes  to  his  sister,  "you  may  take  it  as  certain  that 
the  most  stolid  Recanatese  has  a  greater  dose  of 
good  sense  thanjthe  wisest  and  gravest  Roman.  Be- 
lieve me,  when  I  say  that  the  frivolity  of  these  idiots 
is  beyond  anything.  If  I  tried  to  narrate  all  the 
absurd  stuff  which  serves  as  matter  for  their  talk, 
and  which  they  revel  in,  a  folio  would  not  suffice." 
Truly,  coelum  mutat,  non  animum. 

Leopardi  went  to  Rome  to  get  recognition  and  en- 
couragement in  his  studies,  and  also  to  seek  some 
sort  of  public  employment  that  would  enable  him 


68  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

to  live  away  from  detested  Recanati.  Reputation 
as  a  scholar  soon  came  to  him,  though  such  work  as 
his  was  better  appreciated  by  foreigners  than  by  his 
fellow-countrymen.  Bunsen,  then  Prussian  am- 
bassador at  Rome,  treated  him  kindly,  and  Niebuhr 
expressed  great  admiration  for  him.  We  read  in 
"A  Memoir  of  Baron  Bunsen"  that  Niebuhr,  "re- 
turning from  his  visit  to  the  wretched  lodging  of 
Leopardi,  entered  the  office-room  at  Palazzo  Savelli, 
where  Bunsen  was  at  work,  exclaiming,  with  an  un- 
wonted burst  of  satisfaction,  that  he  had  at  last  seen 
an  Italian  worthy  of  the  old  Italians  and  of  the 
ancient  Romans."  But  admiration  came  more  read- 
ily than  preferment.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities 
at  Rome  were  willing  to  do  what  they  could,  but  only 
on  condition  that  Leopardi  should  enter  the  church. 
In  order  to  bring  this  about,  they  deferred  giving 
him  even  an  insignificant  lay  office,  hoping  literally 
to  starve  him  into  obedience  to  their  wishes.  But 
his  so-called  "philosophical  conversion"  had  taken 
hold  of  him  too  deeply  for  honest  acquiescence  in 
Catholic  doctrine;  and  the  inflexible  uprightness 
which  marked  him,  as  it  has  some  other  unbelievers, 
made  him  scorn  a  hypocritical  compliance.  There- 
fore, after  lingering  on  at  Rome  through  the  winter, 
he  was  obliged  to  return  to  his  father's  house. 

Recanati  did  not  seem  any  more  agreeable  than 
formerly.     His  ill-health  continued  to  make  study 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  69 

impossible,  and  he  was  driven  back  upon  his  own 
thoughts ;  which  fills  his  letters  of  this  time — chiefly 
to  Giordani  and  to  Brighenti,  a  Bolognese  friend — 
with  an  endless  monotony  of  wretchedness.  In  the 
year  1824  he  published  at  Bologna  a  collection  of 
poems,  most  of  which  were  new.  He  also  published 
the  first  of  his  philosophical  prose  works, — "A  com- 
parison of  the  Opinions  of  the  Younger  Brutus  and 
of  Theophrastus,  on  the  Approach  of  Death." 

In  the  spring  of  1825  he  once  more  left  Recanati, 
— this  time  intending  to  proceed  by  way  of  Bologna 
to  Milan,  where  he  had  engaged  to  do  various  kinds 
of  literary  work  for  the  Publisher  Stella.  He  found 
Bologna  very  attractive.  His  reputation  had  pre- 
ceded him  thither,  and  the  literary  circle  received 
him  cordially.  In  Milan  it  was  different.  He  had 
no  friends,  no  connections.  Stella's  work  was  dis- 
agreeable to  him, — editing,  with  little  or  no  pros- 
pect of  either  freedom  or  great  profit.  After  a  stay 
of  two  months  he  returned  to  Bologna,  having  ar- 
ranged to  carry,  out  his  agreement  with  Stella  at 
that  place. 

The  next  year  was  perhaps  the  happiest,  or  the 
least  miserable,  of  his  life.  His  health  was,  as  al- 
ways, bad;  he  had  little  money,  and  was  obliged  to 
give  lessons,  like  many  another  unfortunate  man  of 
letters.  But  he  was  in  the  company  of  people  who 
made  much  of  him,  and  he  found  the  social  diver- 


70  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

sion  that  was  lacking  in  Recanati.  "These  lessons," 
he  writes  to  his  brother  Carlo,  "which  eat  out  the 
heart  of  my  day,  bore  me  horribly.  Except  for  that, 
I  have  nothing  to  complain  of.  The  literary  men, 
who  in  the  beginning,  as  I  have  been  told,  looked 
upon  me  with  envy  and  mistrust,  expecting  to  find 
me  haughty  and  disposed  to  put  on  airs,  are  now 
well-pleased  with  my  affability  and  readiness  to 
give  way  to  every  one;  in  short,  they  speak  very  well 
of  me,  and  I  feel  that  they  consider  my  presence  an 
acquisition  to  Bologna."  At  this  time,  also,  we 
find  the  trace  of  one  of  his  few  love  affairs, — that 
with  the  Countess  Malvezzi.  The  bodily  weakness, 
amounting  almost  to  deformity,  which  resulted  from 
his  early  studies,  made  him  painfully  sensitive  in 
his  relations  with  women ;  but  in  this  particular  case 
literary  sympathy  seems  to  have  been  added  to 
merely  social  attractions.  "When  I  first  knew  her," 
he  writes,  "I  lived  in  a  sort  of  delirium  and  fever. 
We  have  never  spoken  of  love,  unless  in  jest,  but  we 
keep  up  a  tender  and  sympathetic  friendship,  with 
mutual  interest,  and  a  freedom  that  is  like  love  with- 
out love's  disquietude."  Alas,  such  "sympathetic 
friendships"  hasten  so  quickly  to  their  end ! 

In  the  autumn  of  1826  Leopardi  returned  to  Re- 
canati. From  this  time  on  his  life  was  a  losing 
struggle  with  ill-health.  His  hatred  of  his  native 
place  grew  more  and  more  bitter:  "It  seems  a 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  71 

thousand  years  till  I  can  escape  from  this  hoggish 
city,  where  I  know  not  whether  the  men  are  more 
fools  or  knaves;  I  know  well  that  they  are  both  one 
and  the  other."  Harsh  notes  like  this  occur  too  of- 
ten in  Leopardi;  yet  his  situation  was  undoubtedly 
a  trying  one. 

In  1827-28  we  find  him  at  Pisa,  the  climate  there 
suiting  him  better  than  at  Florence  or  Bologna.  The 
death  of  his  younger  brother  Luigi  at  this  time  called 
forth  a  few  words  which  it  is  well  to  quote,  in  con- 
trast with  the  passage  just  given:  "I  have  lost  a 
brother  in  the  flower  of  his  years :  my  family  in  their 
grief  looks  for  no  other  consolation  than  that  of 
my  return.  I  should  be  ashamed  to  live,  if  anything 
but  a  perfect  and  utter  impossibility  prevented  me 
from  going  to  shed  my  tears  with  those  I  love." 

He  did,  indeed,  return  to  Recanati  for  another 
winter;  but  in  May,  1830  he  left  there  for  the  last 
time.  For  the  next  three  years  he  lived  in  Florence 
and  Rome,  his  -health  getting  steadily  worse  and 
worse.  Finally,  \n  the  autumn  of  1833,  ^e  went  to 
Naples  with  Antonio  Ranieri,  whose  name  is  in- 
separably connected  with  Leopardi's  later  years. 
After  this  the  letters  gathered  in  the  correspondence 
become  few  and  brief,  being  chiefly  pitiful  requests 
for  money  to  make  him  less  dependent  on  his  friends. 
Extreme  weakness  rendered  any  continuous  work 
impossible;  and  it  was  probably  only  the  constant 


72  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

and  affectionate  care  of  Ranieri  and  his  sister  that 
prolonged  the  poet's  life.  They  were  successful  in 
doing  this  till  the  spring  of  1837.  Then,  quite  sud- 
denly, death  came  on  the  14th  of  June,  caused  by 
dropsy  affecting  the  heart.  The  cholera  was  in  the 
city  at  the  time,  and  Ranieri  was  only  able  to  se- 
cure private  burial  for  his  friend  by  bribing  the 
priest  of  the  little  church  of  San  Vitale  with  a 
present  of  fish. 

ii 

Leopardi's  prose  is  either  philological  or  philo- 
sophical. The  philological  work  belongs  chiefly  to 
his  younger  days.  It  is  now,  of  course,  much  out  of 
date;  Leopardi  had  no  idea  of  the  discoveries  that 
have  been  made  in  the  nineteenth  century  as  to  the 
relationship  of  the  different  European  languages. 
Yet  he  was  undoubtedly  a  thorough  scholar,  and 
probably  had  that  delicate  insight  which  goes  so 
much  farther  then  erudition,  and  which  so  many 
great  scholars  have  been  without.  Perhaps  his  most 
permanent  work  of  this  kind  is  his  translation  of 
various  classical  authors,  executed  with  the  care  and 
patient  search  for  accurate  expression  that  mark  all 
his  work.  The  excellence  of  his  scholarship  appears 
in  his  imitations  of  Greek  and  old  Italian  writers, 
which  long  deceived  some  very  learned  men.  The 
chief  original  product  of  his  early  years  was  a  book 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  73 

on  the  "Popular  Errors  of  the  Ancients,"  written 
when  he  was  seventeen  years  old,  and  showing  cer- 
tainly extraordinary  learning  for  a  boy  of  that  age. 
Outside  of  the  curious  citations,  the  reader  will  find 
little  to  interest  him  here, — nothing  of  the  large 
Renaissance  curiosity  that  informs  the  fascinating 
work  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  In  treating  the  su- 
perstitions of  Greece  and  Rome,  Leopardi  manifests 
the  same  dogmatic  spirit  that  appears  in  his  later 
writings;  only  he  had  not  yet  hit  upon  extreme 
pessimism,  nor  even  left  the  fold  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  book  closes  with  this  apostrophe: 
"Religion,  loveliest  of  things,  it  is  indeed  sweet  to 
be  able  to  end  with  speech  of  thee  that  which  has 
been  undertaken  to  do  some  good  to  those  whom 
every  day  thou  benefitest;  it  is  indeed  sweet  to  con- 
clude in  security  and  confidence  of  heart  that  he  is 
no  philosopher  who  does  not  follow  and  respect 
thee,  nor  is  there  any  one  who  follows  and  respects 
thee  who  is  not  a  philosopher."  We  are  in  the  full 
vein  of  the  "Imitation." 

In  a  few  years  the  tone  changes.  Acquaintance 
with  Giordani  and  others  brought  about  the  "philo- 
sophical conversion;"  and  after  that  Leopardi's  let- 
ters are  full  of  attacks  upon  the  system  of  nature 
which  creates  man  for  useless,  purposeless  misery. 
All  his  remaining  prose  works  not  strictly  philolog- 
ical develop  these  views  in  one  form  or  another. 


74  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

The  list  is  not  extensive, — some  two  dozen  dialogues 
and  about  a  hundred  "Thoughts"  varying  from 
two  to  thirty  or  forty  lines.  Any  one  who  goes  to 
these  writings  expecting  to  find  in  them  the  formal 
and  logical  exposition  of  the  great  German  meta- 
physicians will  be  disappointed.  Leopardi  was  anx- 
ious to  teach  what  he  considered  to  be  the  true  doc- 
trines of  philosophy;  but  his  first  instinct  as  an 
author  was  literary.  The  model  he  had  before  him 
was  Plato,  or,  still  more,  Lucian;  and  he  aimed  to 
convey  his  teaching  by  illustration,  even  allegory, 
rather  than  by  a  system  of  laborious  deduction. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  his  conclusions,  his 
methods  have  the  great  merit  of  simplicity  and  lit- 
erary charm. 

As  to  the  matter  of  his  philosophy,  the  general 
character  of  it  is  well  known;  it  consists  in  an  ever- 
renewed  proclamation  that  the  sole  certainty  of 
man's  life  is  misery,  that  the  universe  exists  for  no 
apparent  purpose,  that  if  there  are  gods  at  all,  they 
only  augment  the  wretchedness  of  man;  though  on 
this  last  point  Leopardi  is  always  reticent,  leaving  it 
to  the  reader  to  infer  the  complete  incompatibility 
of  any  divine  love  or  goodness  with  such  a  system  as 
he  insists  on  finding  out  in  nature.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  look  far  for  passages  illustrating  these  things. 
Here  is  one  from  a  letter  written  when  he  was  twen- 
ty-one years  old:  "This  is  the  wretched  condition 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  75 

of  humanity  and  the  barbarous  teaching  of  reason, 
that,  human  joys  and  griefs  being  mere  illusions, 
work  that  is  based  on  the  certainty  of  the  nothing- 
ness of  things  is  the  only  work  that  is  just  and  true. 
And  if  it  be  argued  that  by  regulating  all  our  lives 
on  the  feeling  of  this  nothingness,  we  should  end 
the  world  and  should  justly  be  called  mad,  it  is 
nevertheless  logically  certain  that  this  would  be  mad- 
ness rational  in  every  respect  and  even  that  com- 
pared with  it  all  wisdom  would  be  madness;  since 
this  world  goes  on  only  by  the  simple  and  continual 
forgetfulness  of  this  universal  truth  that  everything 
is  nothing." 

This  instantly  recalls  an  eloquent  passage  from 
a  more  celebrated  philosopher  than  Leopardi: 
"Rather  do  we  freely  acknowledge  that  what  remains 
after  the  entire  abolition  of  Will  is  for  all  those 
who  are  still  full  of  Will  certainly  nothing;  but, 
conversely,  to  those  in  whom  the  Will  has  turned 
and  has  denied  itself,  this  our  world,  with  all  its 
suns  and  milky  ways,  is  nothing."  Indeed,  the 
names  of  Schopenhauer  and  Leopardi  are  often  as- 
sociated together  more  closely  than  is  justified  by 
the  circumstances  of  the  case.  Schopenhauer's  phi- 
losophy consists  of  two  parts,  which,  though  skilfully 
and  intimately  blended,  may  yet  be  separated,  and 
have  not,  I  venture  to  think,  so  vital  a  connection  as 
is  generally  assumed.  The  metaphysical  part  is  the 


76  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

theory  of  Will  as  Thing-in-Itself  constituting  the 
absolute  basis  of  the  floating  world  of  phenomena, 
manifesting  itself  momentarily  in  consciousness,  then 
dissolving  and  vanishing  again  into  the  unknown 
from  whence  it  came.  The  practical  part  is  the  un- 
wearied assertion  of  the  utter  misery  of  man's  mor- 
tal life, — misery  alleviated  only  by  the  encourage- 
ment of  false  and  foolish  illusions,  which  make  him 
believe  he  is  ever  approaching  nearer  to  what  it  is 
impossible  he  should  attain.  Whether  Schopen- 
hauer deduced  his  practical  doctrine  from  his  ab- 
stract theory,  or  whether,  as  seems  more  probable, 
his  empirical  view  at  least  coloured  his  metaphysics, 
I  cannot  say;  at  any  rate,  the  two  components  fit  to- 
gether very  neatly. 

Of  these  two  elements  of  Schopenhauer's  "World 
as  Will  and  Idea,"  only  one  appears  in  Leopardi. 
Schopenhauer  found  him  a  most  satisfactory  expo- 
nent of  his  doctrine  as  to  the  evil  of  existence.  "No 
one,"  he  says,  "has  so  thoroughly  and  exhaustively 
handled  this  subject  as  in  our  own  day  Leopardi. 
He  is  entirely  filled  and  penetrated  by  it ;  his  theme 
is  everywhere  the  mockery  and  wretchedness  of  this 
life;  he  presents  it  upon  every  page  of  his  works, 
yet  in  such  a  multiplicity  of  forms  and  applications, 
with  such  a  wealth  of  imagery,  that  he  never  wearies 
us,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  throughout  entertaining 
and  exciting."  Indeed  the  Italian  poet's  proclama- 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  77 

tion  of  pessimism  is  so  thorough  and  consistent  that 
it  could  not  but  be  gratifying  to  his  German  follower. 
Of  metaphysics  proper,  however,  Leopardi  has  little 
or  nothing.  He  has  a  great  deal  to  say  about  philoso- 
phy, and  about  the  importance  of  giving  it  a  place 
in  Italian  literature ;  but  in  his  works  he  never  does 
more  than  reiterate  a  few  phrases  about  the  misery 
of  life  and  the  inanity  of  all  human  pursuits.  Such 
theory  as  he  has  would  seem  to  be  derived  from  the 
English  empirical  school  of  Locke  and  his  followers. 
He  was  not  a  German  scholar,  and  evidently  knew 
nothing  even  of  Kant,  much  less  of  Kant's  suc- 
cessors. Except  for  a  few  coincidences  of  expres- 
sion, he  has  no  trace  of  the  elaborate  system  of 
Schopenhauer,  and  would  probably  have  found  talk 
about  the  Will  as  Thing-in-Itself  simply  unintel- 
ligible. 

Nevertheless,  Schopenhauer  is  right  in  saying  that 
Leopardi  presents  the  mockery  and  wretchedness  of 
this  life  upon  every  page  of  his  works,  and  with  a 
multiplicity  of  forms  and  illustrations.  I  think  the 
philosopher  is  mistaken  when  he  declares  that  this 
is  always  entertaining  and  exciting;  but  it  is  done 
with  such  skill  that,  considering  the  narrowness  of 
the  subject,  there  is  wonderfully  little  monotony. 
Every  dialogue  ends  with  the  same  refrain:  it  were 
better  not  to  have  been  born ;  having  been  born,  it  is 
best  to  die  as  soon  as  convenient;  but  this  theme  is 


78  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

constantly  varied.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  "Hercules 
and  Atlas,"  or  "The  Earth  and  the  Moon,"  super- 
human beings  satirise  the  unhappy  lot  of  mortals. 
Sometimes  philosophers  discuss  it,  as  in  the  "Dia- 
logue between  a  Physicist  and  a  Metaphysician,"  or 
in  the  "Plotinus  and  Porphyrius."  Sometimes  a  for- 
lorn creature  addresses  a  higher  power  with  reproach 
or  prayer,  as  in  the  "Dialogue  between  Nature  and  a 
Soul,"  or  in  that  "Between  Nature  and  an  Ice- 
lander." Sometimes  the  misery  of  man  receives  illus- 
tration or  comment  from  beings  lower  in  the  natural 
world,  as  in  the  "Dialogue  between  a  Will-o'-the- 
Wisp  and  a  Gnome,"  or  in  the  "Eulogy  of  Birds." 

The  very  titles  show  how  much  there  is  of  literary 
art  in  all  these.  Some  of  them  are  playful, — at 
least  on  the  surface.  Hercules  persuades  Atlas  to 
use  the  earth  for  a  game  of  ball,  in  the  midst  of 
which  they  drop  it,  greatly  to  their  dismay.  Fashion 
points  out  to  Death  the  immense  services  she  ren- 
ders her  by  leading  man-kind  into  infinite  pernicious 
follies.  A  passer-by  questions  an  almanac-vender 
as  to  the  coming  year,  and  tries  to  prove  to  him  that 
there  is  no  reason  why  that  should  be  happy,  if 
none  of  the  past  have  been.  Some  are  poetical,  al- 
most lyrical,  like  the  "Song  of  the  Wild  Cock,"  and 
the  exquisite  "Eulogy  of  Birds."  The  latter,  espe- 
cially, is  an  Aristophanic  piece  of  musical  grace. 
"Other  animals  appear  commonly  grave  and  solemn 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  79 

...  ;  if  they  take  pleasure  in  the  green  fields,  in 
broad  and  pleasant  prospects,  in  splendid  sunshine, 
in  a  crystalline  and  gentle  air,  they  make  no  sign. 
.  .  .  But  birds  show  their  joy  by  their  movements 
and  their  very  look." 

Most  of  the  dialogues  are,  however,  of  a  grey 
and  melancholy  cast.  The  "History  of  the  Human 
Race,"  the  first  in  the  collection,  gives  anything  but 
a  cheerful  account  of  the  gradual  degradation  of 
humanity  down  to  the  nineteenth  century,  which 
Leopardi  detested  with  all  his  soul.  The  "Wager  of 
Prometheus"  recounts  Prometheus's  efforts  to  prove 
the  excellence  of  his  invention  of  man,  and  his  com- 
plete failure  to  do  so.  "Copernicus"  ridicules  the 
fluctuations  of  science.  The  "Dialogue  between 
Frederick  Ruysch  and  his  Mummies"  represents  the 
latter  as  reviving  for  a  short  space  and  enlightening 
their  owner  about  the  other  world,  as  well  as  about 
the  departure  from  this. 

Perhaps  as  complete  an  exposition  as  any  of  Leo- 
pardi's  pessimism  is  to  be  found  in  the  "Dialogue 
between  Nature'  and  an  Icelander."  The  native  of 
the  northern  island,  after  seeking  everywhere  the 
author  of  the  miseries  of  life,  finds  in  the  centre  of 
Africa  a  vast  image  of  a  woman,  who  condescends 
to  discuss  the  matter  with  him.  She  points  out  that 
the  universe  exists  only  by  a  continual  process  of 
production  and  destruction.  "That  is  what  all  the 


8o  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

philosophers  argue,"  says  the  Icelander,  "but  inas- 
much as  that  which  is  destroyed  suffers,  and  that 
which  destroys  receives  no  pleasure  and  is  soon  de- 
stroyed in  its  turn,  tell  me  what  no  philosopher  can 
tell  me:  who  is  pleased  or  benefited  by  this  most 
miserable  existence  of  the  universe,  sustained  by  the 
suffering  and  death  of  all  things  that  compose  it*?" 
The  interesting  response  to  this  question  is  inter- 
rupted by  the  arrival  of  two  hungry  lions,  who  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  make  away  with  the  curious  Ice- 
lander. 

The  "Memorable  Sayings  of  Filippo  Ottonieri" 
gives  a  sort  of  idealised  sketch  of  Leopardi  himself, 
embodying  the  curious  combination  of  defiant  nihil- 
ism with  high  moral  principle  which  was  peculiar 
to  him.  The  piece  ends  with  an  epitaph  of  singular 
and  melancholy  dignity.  "The  bones  of  Filippo 
Ottonieri,  born  for  virtuous  deeds  and  for  glory, 
lived  indolent  and  useless,  and  died  without  fame, 
not  ignorant  of  his  own  nature  nor  of  his  own  for- 
tune." 

Besides  the  "Dialogues"  or  "Operette  Moral!" 
Leopardi  wrote,  shortly  before  his  death,  about  a 
hundred  "Thoughts,"  much  the  same  in  tone  as  his 
longer  pieces.  They  are,  however,  colder  and  more 
gloomy.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  touch  of  calm  in- 
sight, as :  "There  is  no  greater  mark  of  feeble  phi- 
losophy and  little  wisdom  than  to  demand  that  the 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  81 

whole  of  life  should  be  philosophical  and  wise."  But 
the  majority  are  quite  as  cynical  as  La  Rochefou- 
cauld, without  his  brilliancy  and  point. 

The  thing  that  strikes  one  most  about  Leopardi's 
mental  attitude  is  the  absoluteness  of  it.  Happi- 
ness is  a  dream,  he  says,  because  we  no  sooner  ob- 
tain what  we  wish  for  than  it  becomes  repugnant  to 
us,  and  we  begin  to  long  for  something  else.  No 
situation  is  so  delightful  but  that  we  can  imagine 
another  more  so;  and  desire  for  that  other  makes 
the  actual  one  wretched  by  comparison.  But  does 
it?  Is  it  not  possible  to  recognise  that  one  might 
be  happier,  and  yet  be  very  happy  at  the  same 
time? 

With  such  beliefs  as  these,  the  natural  course  to 
take  would  be  suicide.  If  life  is  so  utterly  worth- 
less and  miserable,  why  not  get  out  of  it?  On  this 
point  Leopardi  is  not  satisfactory.  Schopenhauer 
treats  it  logically  by  explaining  that  life  is,  indeed, 
miserable,  since  it  is  the  indulgence  of  the  tyrannous 
Will;  but  to  tal^e  one's  life  is  an  even  more  violent 
act  of  will,  which,  instead  of  freeing  us,  involves 
us  only  more  deeply.  We  must  emancipate  ourselves 
by  becoming  indifferent  to  life,  death,  or  anything 
else.  Leopardi  has  not  this  resource.  He  is  con- 
stantly dwelling  on  the  superior  charms  of  death, 
and  charging  mankind  with  cowardice  for  not  seek- 
ing it;  but  he  does  not  state  clearly  whether  he  is 


82  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

himself  deterred  by  this  consideration,  or  by  some 
other.  The  "Dialogue  between  Plotinus  and  Por- 
phyrius"  turns  on  this  subject,  but  the  arguments 
are  neither  very  clear  nor  very  strong. 

The  truth  is  that,  like  every  one  with  a  dogma 
to  defend,  Leopardi  was  blind  to  any  consideration 
that  did  not  support  his  position.  He  was  not  con- 
tented with  being  unhappy  himself;  he  was  deter- 
mined that  every  one  else  should  be  unhappy,  as 
well.  Not,  of  course,  that  he  was  anxious  to  make 
them  so ;  but  he  wished  them  to  understand  that  they 
were  necessarily  so,  and  that  nothing  but  their  own 
folly  prevented  them  from  seeing  it.  Thus  it  was 
natural  that  he  should  be  irritated  when  told  that 
he  looked  at  life  through  dark  glasses,  and  was  mis- 
led by  his  own  physical  weakness  and  suffering.  He 
solemnly  denies  this,  not  seeing,  apparently,  that  no 
denial  of  his  could  possibly  affect  the  argument ;  un- 
less, indeed,  he  had  brought  forward  as  the  greatest 
proof  that  nature  was  malign,  her  having  made  him 
to  call  her  so.  This  he  neglects  to  do;  and  the 
healthy  part  of  mankind  will,  therefore,  forever  re- 
gard him  as  a  melancholy  hypochondriac. 

Independent  of  his  health,  it  is,  however,  clear 
that  many  circumstances  combined  to  give  him  a 
peculiar  view  of  things.  His  family  relations  were 
trying.  He  had  constantly  before  him  the  degrada- 
tion of  Italy,  brought  home  more  keenly  by  his  fa- 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  83 

miliarity  with  the  history  of  her  past.  Above  all, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  was  long  isolated  in  a  provin- 
cial town,  removed  from  the  stir  of  modern  life, 
which  produces  scepticism,  but  teaches  toleration, 
comprehension  of  varying  conditions.  The  results 
of  this  are  everywhere  seen  in  Leopardi,  and  make 
him  seem,  in  spite  of  all  his  scholarship  and  all  his 
literary  ability,  like  a  fretful  and  irritated  child,  who 
cries,  as  I  heard  one  the  other  day:  "I'm  not  happy, 
and  I  haven't  got  anything  to  make  me  happy." 
This  is  the  whole  philosophy  of  Leopardi. 


in 


Leopardi  was  not  a  philosopher,  but  a  man  of 
letters.  His  work  does  not  embody  a  consistent 
system  of  reasoning;  but  it  offers  us  a  study  of 
human  life, — not,  indeed,  broad  in  its  scope,  yet 
subtle,  above  all  passionate,  and  carried  on  with 
an  exquisite  feeling  for  certain  kinds  of  beauty  in 
style.  The  moclels  that  he  set  before  himself 
were  the  Greeks  and  the  early  Italians:  he  sought 
purity  and  simplicity  rather  than  the  richness  and 
variety  of  colour  that  belong  to  a  great  deal  of  mod- 
ern writing;  but  such  means  as  he  used  were  perfectly 
within  his  control,  and  his  care  and  patience  are 
shown  by  the  great  number  of  varying  readings 
which  have  been  published  in  recent  editions  of  his 


84  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

works.  This  devotion  to  the  technical  part  of  style 
recalls  Flaubert,  with  whom  Leopardi  has  something 
in  common;  though  the  great  French  novelist  had  a 
far  wider  and  stronger  hold  on  human  life  in  gen- 
eral.1 

The  love  of  simplicity,  of  pure  yet  energetic 
form,  is  undoubtedly  what  gives  Leopardi  his  popu- 
larity in  Italy,  as  to  which  Signer  Piergili  says: 
"Does  not  this  person  know  that  Leopardi  is  one  of 
the  authors  most  studied  among  us, — that  he  is 
studied  and  learned  by  heart,  not  only  by  the  pupils 
in  the  schools,  in  the  technological  institutes,  and  in 
the  universities,  but  even  by  young  girls,  who  cannot 
pretend  to  more  than  a  moderate  education*?" 
"Amore  e  Morte"  seems  a  curious  study  for  young 
girls;  but  then — so  is  Shelley's  "Revolt  of  Islam." 

This  simplicity  of  form  also  separates  Leopardi 
from  the  romantic  writers  of  his  own  generation  in 
Italy,  France,  England,  and  Germany.  His  quiet 
and  isolated  life,  his  constant  preoccupation  with 
the  classics,  made  him  prize  a  severe  and  statuesque 

1  An  Italian  critic  gives  some  statistics  as  to  Leopardi's  style — 
stating,  among  other  things,  that  the  number  of  adjectives  in  a 
thousand  words  averages  62,  taking  all  his  poems  but  one, — "La 
Ginestra."  This  is  also  the  case  with  Dante's  "Divina  Commedia." 
Such  figures  have  not  much  value,  yet  they  are  suggestive.  I  give 
some  computations  that  I  have  had  the  curiosity  to  make  on  the 
English  poets.  In  ten  thousand  words  taken  from  different  poems 
of  Keats,  the  proportion  of  adjectives  to  the  thousand  is  126,  in 
Milton,  113;  in  Spenser,  108.  In  Shakespeare  it  is  only  63;  and 
this  is  not  wholly  owing  to  Shakespeare's  works  being  dramatic, 
since  I  find  the  proportion  in  Fletcher  to  be  79. 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  85 

restraint  much  more  than  they  did.  Yet  in  spirit, 
in  feeling,  he  was  profoundly  romantic;  and  it  is 
just  this  combination  that  makes  him  interesting. 
His  classicism  was  not  the  tawdry  frippery  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  injures  Byron  when  he 
does  not  shake  himself  free  from  it;  it  was  the  same 
passion  for  clear,  perfect  lines  that  possessed  Goethe ; 
and  Leopardi,  with  Italian  to  work  in,  was  able  to 
satisfy  it  better  than  Goethe  ever  succeeded  in  do- 
ing. But  underneath  the  polished  form  lurks  a  fire 
none  the  less  fierce  for  being  hidden:  all  the  rest- 
lessness, the  questioning,  the  defiance,  which  Byron 
wore  upon  his  sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at,  Leopardi 
carried  in  his  heart,  wove  it  subtly  into  the  fibre 
of  his  verses,  to  be  plucked  out  readily  enough  by 
a  sympathetic  hand.  I  say  his  verses,  because  the 
personal  element  comes  in  there  more  clearly  than  in 
his  prose.  In  spite  of  all  his  skill,  the  dialogues  are 
tedious.  They  have  an  air  of  pretension  which  is 
unjustified.  We  look  for  philosophy,  and  get  noth- 
ing but  railing;  pot  cynical  indeed, — there  is  too 
much  earnestness  for  that, — but  cold.  The  writer 
evidently  makes  an  effort  to  keep  in  the  background. 
But  Leopardi's  poetry  is  personal,  lyrical.  It  is  less 
vehement,  less  incoherent,  than  Byron  or  Shelley  or 
Obermann,  but  not  less  passionate,  less  sincere.  Sin- 
cerity, genuineness,  are,  indeed,  stamped  on  every 
line  Leopardi  wrote.  His  thinking  may  have  been 


86  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

neither  clear  nor  logical;  but  his  feeling  is  at  once 
subtle,  thoroughly  modern,  and  of  a  kind  not  quite 
to  be  paralleled  in  any  contemporary  literature. 

Leopardi's  poetry  consists,  besides  some  boyish 
work,  of  translations  done  in  his  youth,  when  he  was 
busy  with  philology,  of  forty-one  short  pieces  pub- 
lished in  his  lifetime,  and  of  the  "Paralipomena  to 
the  Batrachomyomachia,"  formerly  attributed  to 
Homer.  The  latter  poem,  which  is  of  considerable 
length,  is  a  mock  heroic,  composed  in  Leopardi's 
last  years  to  satirise  contemporary  political  events. 
It  is  difficult  for  a  foreigner  to  follow,  and  more- 
over, attempts  humour,  which  with  Leopardi  always 
results  in  a  sort  of  skull  and  crossbones  effect.  The 
execution  is  skilful,  and  reminds  one  constantly  of 
Ariosto, — but  only  to  bring  out  the  difference  be- 
tween his  joyous  license  and  the  contracted  grimaces 
of  his  modern  imitator. 

Of  the  "Canti,"  or  "Odes,"  the  first  four  or  five, 
written  before  their  author  had  learned  his  strength, 
are  full  of  patriotic  rhetoric  about  Italy.  Leopardi 
ostensibly  kept  his  moral  enthusiasms  quite  inde- 
pendent of  his  philosophical  doctrines;  but,  never- 
theless, these  poems  ring  a  little  hollow.  The  imi- 
tation of  the  classics  is  too  apparent;  and  it  is  hard 
to  associate  passion  with  such  a  frequent  appeal  to 
"numi,"  in  the  plural,  or  with  such  frigid  encour- 
agement as:  "But  for  thine  own  sake  set  thy  heart 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  87 

upon  the  goal.  What  is  life  for?  For  nothing  but 
that  we  should  contemn  it;  it  is  happy  only  when, 
absorbed  in  perils,  it  forgets  itself,  takes  no  note 
of  the  filthy,  tedious  hours,  hears  not  the  flowing  of 
them,  happy  only  when  with  foot  treading  the 
Lethean  shore  it  begins  at  last  to  smile."  Yet  these 
Odes,  like  the  later  ones,  have  traces  of  the  grand 
style  about  them;  one  is  reminded  everywhere  of 
Petrarch,  often  of  a  greater  than  Petrarch, — of  the 
greatest  of  all  the  poets  of  Italy. 

Such  poems  as  those  addressed  to  Count  Carlo 
Pepoli  or  "La  Ginestra"  have  a  general  philosophi- 
cal tendency  resembling  that  of  the  "Dialogues." 
"La  Ginestra"  is  one  of  Leopardi's  latest  and  longest 
works,  written  with  all  his  simplicity,  and  with  such 
Dantesque  touches  as, — 

"Quale  star  puo  quel  c'  ha  in  error  la  sede." 

It  is  the  most  complete  exposition  of  his  more  ma- 
ture philosophical  views,  and  shows  a  certain  aban- 
donment of  the  attitude  of  fierce  scorn  for  that  of 
love  and  tenderness;  as  in  the  celebrated  line,  "I 
know  not  which  prevails,  laughter  or  pity."  But  I 
am  inclined  to  think  Leopardi's  most  devoted  readers 
generally  prefer  the  shorter  and  more  lyrical  pieces. 
These  are  of  two  kinds;  those  which  depict  the 
feelings  of  some  other  person  than  the  poet  him- 
self, or  are  at  least  general,  and  those  which  are 


88  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

strictly  personal,  and  express  his  own  experience  and 
opinions  directly.  Among  those  of  the  first  class 
we  have  "The  Last  Song  of  Sappho,"  "Calm  after 
Storm,"  "The  Nocturnal  Song  of  a  Wandering 
Shepherd  of  Asia,"  "The  Setting  of  the  Moon," 
"Love  and  Death."  The  descriptive  pieces  usually 
begin  with  a  sketch  of  some  scene  or  event,  and  con- 
clude with  a  moral, — a  melancholy  moral,  of  course. 
Thus,  in  "Calm  after  Storm,"  we  have  first  the  pic- 
ture of  peace  returning  to  the  landscape,  and  then  the 
comment,  quite  in  Leopardi's  vein : — 

"O,  courteous  Nature,  these  are  thy  gifts,  these  the  de- 
lights thou  bestowest  upon  men.  To  escape  from  grief  is 
a  delight  to  us.  Sorrows  thou  scatterest  with  an  open 
hand;  woe  springs  unsummoned;  and  such  joy  as  is  born 
rarely,  a  wonder  and  miracle,  from  ill,  is  a  precious  gain. 
The  human  race  dear  to  the  Gods!  Happy  enough  are  we, 
if  we  are  allowed  to  breathe  exempt  from  misery,  blessed 
if  death  frees  us  from  all  pain." 

The  quality  of  natural  description  that  appears  in 
all  these  poems  is  that  of  Greek  and  Latin  poetry; 
it  is  clear,  direct,  simple, — as,  for  instance,  in  "The 
Village  Saturday" :  "A  maiden  comes  from  the  fields 
at  sunset  with  a  sheaf  of  grain,  bearing  in  her  hand 
a  bunch  of  roses  and  violets."  Colour,  the  rich 
warmth  of  feeling  for  Nature  which  belongs  to  the 
northern  nations,  Leopardi  has  not.  His  passion  is 
all  for  the  interests  and  sufferings  of  man.  And  in 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  89 

these  semi-dramatic  poems  it  makes  itself  felt  with 
wonderful  intensity.  Still  it  is  the  same  refrain: 
"All  is  mystery  save  our  grief.  Neglected  offspring, 
we  are  born  to  tears,  and  the  cause  is  hidden  in  the 
bosom  of  the  gods."  "This  I  know  and  feel,"  sings 
the  Shepherd  of  Asia,  "that  from  the  endless  flow 
of  things,  that  from  my  frail  being,  some  good  or 
joy  may  come  to  others;  but  life  is  misery  to  me." 
"The  Setting  of  the  Moon"  ends  thus: — 

"But  mortal  life,  when  once  fair  youth  has  vanished, 
shines  with  a  lovely  colour  never  more,  knows  no  new  dawn. 
Widowed  is  it  till  the  end;  and  on  the  night  which  sheds 
its  shadows  over  all  past  years  the  Gods  have  set  the 
sepulchre  for  sign  and  seal." 

More  impressive  still  becomes  this  cry  of  revolt 
and  pain  in  the  pieces  where  the  poet  speaks  himself. 
The  most  common  subject  of  lyrical  outbursts,  love, 
is  not  very  prominent  in  Leopardi.  Yet  a  number 
of  poems  touch*  upon  it  vaguely.  "Silvia"  and  "The 
Recollection"  refer  to  passions  of  his  youth,  "when 
the  harsh,  unworthy  mystery  of  things  comes  to  us 
full  of  sweetness."  "Aspasia"  recounts  a  later  affair, 
which  resulted  in  disappointment  and  bitterness.  He 
was  no  more  fortunate  in  love  than  in  other  things. 
Here,  too,  he  was,  perhaps,  led  astray  by  the  wor- 
ship of  an  impossible  ideal.  The  verses  "To  His 
Lady"  would  form  rather  a  perilous  standard  for 


90  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

earthly  love-making:  "Naught  on  earth  resembles 
thee;  and  if  anything  should  seem  to  resemble  thee 
in  feature,  in  act,  in  speech,  it  would  be,  even  so 
like,  less  beautiful  than  thou." 

The  most  interesting  of  these  personal  lyrics  are 
those  in  which  the  poet  strikes  slight  chords  in  his 
own  remembered  life,  the  echo  of  which  shudders 
into  a  vague  harmony  of  grief.  Such  is  the  poem 
"To  the  Moon,"  grand  and  clear  as  Petrarch,  with 
its — 

"II  rimembrar  delle  passate  cose." 

Such  is  "The  Infinite,"  which  I  give  in  verse,  re- 
flecting alas!  but  feebly  the  solemn  beauty  of  the 
original : — 

"This  tender  slope  was  always  dear  to  me 
And  this  enclosure,  which  shuts  off  my  gaze 
From  half  the  circle  of  the  far  horizon. 
And  sitting  here,  in  thought  I  have  devised 
Interminable  vastness,  out  beyond, 
And  superhuman  silence,  and  some  rest 
Profoundest,  gazing,  where  a  little  while 
The  heart  frets  not  itself.     And  as  I  hear 
The  night-wind  howling  idly  through  the  woods, 
I  can  compare  its  turbulence  with  that 
Infinity  of  silence,  and  remember 
The  eternal,  and  the  years  past,  and  those  present 
And  passing,  and  their  murmur.     So  in  this 
Immensity  my  thought  has  lost  itself, 
Nor  am  I  loath  to  wreck  in  such  a  sea." 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  91 

Such  is  the  longer  "Evening  after  a  Festival,"  de- 
scribing the  poet's  agony  at  parting  from  his  mis- 
tress, and  comparing  it  to  the  fretful  sorrow  of  a 
child,  who,  after  his  holiday  has  fled,  lies  oppressed 
with  the  utter,  blank  monotony  of  life : — 

"In  my  first  childish  years, 

When  some  bright,  longed-for,  happy  day  had  come, 
And  passed,  and  gone,  I,  grieving,  on  my  couch 
Lay,  watched;  and  in  the  stillness  of  the  night 
A  song  far-heard  in  dark  and  quiet  ways, 
Which  swelled  upon  the  silence  and  died  off, 
Even  then,  as  now,  passionately  wrung  my  heart." 

He  to  whom  this  does  not  recall  a  thousand  things 
will  find  nothing  to  please  him  in  Leopardi. 

It  will  be  sufficiently  clear  that  Leopardi,  in  spite 
of  his  great  originality,  has  a  good  deal  in  common 
with  the  Senancours  and  Chateaubriands  of  France, 
the  Byrons  and  Shelleys  of  England.  He  was  an 
idealist,  as  they  were.  The  realities  of  life  disgusted 
him.  His  heact  was  fixed  on  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth.  Only  he  had  no  sort  of  confidence  that 
the  ideal  would  ever  become  real.  He  shows  not  one 
trace  of  interest  in  the  great  democratic  movement 
that  began  with  the  French  Revolution.  He  is  full 
of  scorn  for  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  printing- 
press,  its  philanthropy,  its  calm  assumption  of 
superiority  over  the  past:  "The  wise  heads  of  my 
time  found  out  a  new  and  almost  divine  plan:  not 


92  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

being  able  to  make  any  one  on  earth  happy,  forget- 
ting individuals,  they  set  themselves  to  work  to  seek 
a  common  happiness;  and  this  being  found  easily, 
these  people  make  of  a  race  each  wretched  and  miser- 
able a  joyous  and  happy  nation."  Leopardi  is  irre- 
ligious, as  were  many  of  his  French  and  English 
fellows.  But  his  irreligion  is  cold  and  indifferent, 
not  defiant.  The  gods  are  not  to  him  great  blighting 
shadows,  to  be  combated;  they  are  vague  personifi- 
cations, too  insignificant  to  be  treated  even  with  con- 
tempt. Yet  neither  Shelley  nor  Byron  nor  Heine 
has  surpassed  the  blank,  tremendous  blasphemy  of 
Leopardi,  sterner  and  more  overwhelming  because 
it  is  so  cold:  "Bitter  and  grey  is  life;  there  is  naught 
else  but  greyness  and  bitterness;  mere  slough  is  this 
world.  Rest  forever.  Despair  now  for  the  last 
time.  To  me  fate  gave  nothing  but  to  die.  Nature 
ever  spurns  thee, — Nature,  the  ugly  power,  which 
rules  in  secret  to  the  common  ill,  and  the  infinite 
vanity  of  things."  Yet  even  here  one  sees  that  the 
poet  is  led  astray  by  the  very  excess  of  idealism  in 
him.  It  is  said  that  he  was  led  to  think  all  men 
knaves,  because  he  was  ready  to  trust  all  men.  The 
same  childish  absoluteness  is  manifest  in  his  writ- 
ings. Every  one  must  notice  his  extreme  fondness 
for  personification.  This  poor  deity,  Nature,  is  mal- 
treated by  him  because  he  conceives  her,  not  form- 
ally, but  constantly,  as  a  remote  human  being  ani- 


A  PESSIMIST  POET  93 

mated  with  the  most  anthropomorphic  spite. 
Scherer,  the  French  critic,  notices  this  in  his  essay 
on  Amiel:  "  'I  know  Nature  is  deaf,'  cries  Leopardi, 
'that  she  thinks  not  of  happiness,  but  of  being  only.' 
Passion  of  a  fretful  child!  Nature  is  neither  deaf, 
nor  preoccupied,  nor  cruel — she  is  what  she  is." 
Taken  by  itself,  this  sounds  rather  oracular,  but  it 
offers  just  the  correction  Leopardi  requires. 

But  it  is  this  very  absoluteness  that  makes  him 
lovable.  It  is  because  his  heart  beats  so  warm  with 
human  affection  that  he  revolts  against  the  necessary 
conventionality  of  life;  it  is  because  he  conceives 
so  high  a  destiny  for  man  that  he  proclaims  the  utter 
vileness  of  all  that  man  has  done  or  does.  He  is  no 
sceptic,  no  cynic,  no  Epicurean.  He  is  hopeless,  but 
not  loveless;  and  by  that  tenderness  and  breadth  of 
love  he  has  a  close  kinship  with  the  great  English 
poet  who  lived  near  him  without  knowing  him,  who 
sung  the  woes  of  life  as  clearly  as  Leopardi,  but 
far  more  clearly  the  regeneration  love  might  work,  if 
only  love  wou!4  take  heart  and  face  its  task. 

The  net  result  we  get  from  Leopardi  is  certainly 
disappointing,  and  to  most  people  irritating.  We 
rebel  against  this  positive  assertion  of  our  misery 
on  grounds  of  sentiment,  but  still  more  on  grounds 
of  fact.  Tell  us  life  is  wretched,  if  you  will, — per- 
haps even  more  wretched  than  happy ;  but  tell  us  that 
life  contains  no  happiness  at  all,  and  most  of  us 


94  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

answer,  "Please  speak  for  yourself."  Life  is  not 
made  on  such  an  absolute  plan.  Mysterious  it  cer- 
tainly is;  but  there  are  bright  spots  in  it, — yes,  for 
all  of  us !  Sainte-Beuve  says,  speaking  of  Chateau- 
briand, "I  know  the  race  of  Rene:  they  have  their 
moments  of  unhappiness,  when  they  cry  from  the 
housetops  and  pour  out  their  miseries  to  the  universe ; 
they  have  days  of  joy  which  they  bury  in  silence." 
The  insinuation  of  rhetoric  and  posing  here  implied 
does  not  affect  Leopardi;  but,  though  his  notes  of 
quietness  and  peace  are  rare,  they  occasionally  come. 
With  one  of  these,  an  appeal  to  nature  not  as  an 
"ugly  power,"  but  as  the  sweetest,  gentlest  of  com- 
forters, let  me  end.  "For  even  if  life  is  shorn  of 
love  and  all  sweet  dreams,  even  if  starless  night  shuts 
round  me  in  the  midst  of  spring,  yet  have  I  my  com- 
fort and  revenge  lying  here  idle,  quiet  on  the  grass, 
smiling  at  earth  and  sky  and  sea." 

1893 


IV 
ANTHONY  TROLLOPE 


IV 

ANTHONY    TROLLOPE 

JT  is  pleasant  to  see  signs  of  a  Trollope  revival, 
and  we  may  well  hope  that  readers  who  are  a 
little  tired  of  cloak  and  sword  romance  will  be 
glad  to  seek  variety  in  the  pages  of  "Doctor  Thorne" 
and  the  Barchester  Chronicles.  Perhaps  no  writer 
represents  more  perfectly  than  Trollope  the  great 
development  of  social  and  domestic  tendencies  in 
the  English  novel  of  the  middle  and  third  quarter  of 
the  last  century.  A  man  of  real  genius,  he  yet  had 
not  genius  enough  to  stand  out  from  and  above  his 
time;  and  for  that  very  reason  he  portrays  it  more 
fully,  just  as  Ben  Jonson  brings  us  nearer  to  the 
Elizabethan  Age  than  does  Shakespeare. 

Trollope  was, essentially  a  realist;  by  which  I  do 
not  mean  that  he  had  any  elaborate  theory  as  to 
his  art,  but  simply  that  he  described  common  life  as 
common  people  see  it.  Realism  is  genius  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  commonplace.  Imagine  a  beef-eat- 
ing, fox-hunting,  Gaul-hating  Englishman,  red- 
cheeked,  arrogant,  stuffed  full  of  prejudice,  loathing 
a  radical,  idolising  a  bishop  and  a  lord,  and  worship- 

97 


98  A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ping  British  liberty, — imagine  such  a  one  with  the 
exceptional  gift  of  depicting  himself  and  many  an- 
other like  him  to  the  very  life,  and  you  have  the 
author  of  "Orley  Farm"  and  "Phineas  Finn." 

It  would  be  desirable  to  reprint  Trollope's  Auto- 
biography with  the  novels,  as  no  novelist  has  left  us 
a  more  entertaining  and  instructive  account  of  him- 
self and  his  objects  and  methods  of  work.  No  char- 
acter in  his  stories  stands  out  more  distinctly  before 
us  than  the  awkward,  unfortunate,  neglected  boy, 
who  tripped  and  stumbled  through  an  imperfect 
education  and  a  premature  manhood,  a  burden  and 
annoyance  to  his  friends,  an  object  of  disgust  and  dis- 
satisfaction to  himself.  Nor  does  any  novel  present 
a  happier  ending  to  the  imagination  of  the  sympa- 
thetic reader  than  that  pleasant  picture  of  a  way 
found  out  of  difficulties,  of  success  achieved  by  hon- 
est industry,  of  self-respecting,  middle-class  virtue 
rewarded  with  unlimited  whist,  wine,  cigars,  and 
fox-hunting.  It  is  enough  to  turn  the  ambition  of 
every  poor  boy  in  the  direction  of  authorship. 

What  is  especially  delightful  in  Trollope's  con- 
fessions is  the  utter  absence  of  shame.  Other  artists 
— some  others — do  their  pot-boiling  in  private,  and 
proclaim  publicly  their  scorn  of  pecuniary  gain,  their 
adoration  of  art  for  art's  sake.  Trollope  writes  for 
money,  and  is  proud  of  getting  it.  He  speaks  of 
"that  high-flown  doctrine  of  the  contempt  of  money, 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  99 

which  I  have  never  admired."  If  he  can  make  a 
work  of  perfect  art,  well  and  good;  but  perfect  or 
imperfect,  it  must  sell.  He  gives  an  elaborate  table 
— doubtless  to  many  young  authors  the  most  inter- 
esting portion  of  the  book — containing  a  full,  dated 
list  of  all  his  writings  and  the  sums  received  for  each 
of  them  up  to  the  year  1879,  amounting  to  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 

Nor  did  Trollope  believe  that  genius  must  be  pam- 
pered, humoured,  taken  at  its  propitious  times  and 
seasons.  In  the  nineteenth  century  everything 
should  be  manufactured  mechanically,  books  as  well 
as  shoes.  "I  had  long  since  convinced  myself  that 
in  such  work  as  mine  the  great  merit  consisted  in 
acknowledging  myself  to  be  bound  by  rules  of  labour 
similar  to  those  which  an  artisan  or  a  mechanic  is 
forced  to  obey.  A  shoemaker,  when  he  has  finished 
one  pair  of  shoes,  does  not  sit  down  and  contemplate 
his  work  in  idle  satisfaction:  'There  is  my  pair  of 
shoes  finished  at  last !  What  a  pair  of  shoes  it  is !' 
The  shoemaker  Vho  so  indulged  himself  would  be 
without  wages  half  his  time.  It  is  the  same  with  a 
professional  writer  of  books.  .  .  .  Having  thought 
much  of  all  this,  and  having  made  up  my  mind  that 
I  could  be  really  happy  only  when  I  was  at  work, 
I  had  now  quite  accustomed  myself  to  begin  a  second 
pair  as  soon  as  the  first  was  out  of  my  hands." 

All  the  details  of  this  cobbling  process  are  com- 


ioo         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

placently  revealed  to  us.  So  many  words  an  hour, — 
"to  write  with  my  watch  before  me,  and  to  require 
from  myself  two  hundred  and  fifty  words  every 
quarter  of  an  hour.  I  have  found  that  the  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  words  were  forthcoming  as  regularly 
as  my  watch  went," — so  many  hours  a  day,  so  many 
novels  a  year !  Carlyle  required  absolute  silence  and 
leisure  for  production:  the  hand-organ  over  the  way 
tormented  him  to  fury.  But  this  characteristic 
author  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  indifferent  to 
time  and  place.  "I  made  for  myself,  therefore,  a 
little  tablet,  and  found,  after  a  few  days'  exercise, 
that  I  could  write  as  quickly  in  a  railway  carriage 
as  I  could  at  my  desk."  These  bits  of  insight  into 
the  method  of  production  will  mean  more  to  us 
when  we  come  to  look  more  closely  into  the  product 
itself. 

Trollope's  novels  deal  almost  entirely  with  the 
author's  own  time;  no  mediaeval  history,  bravos, 
swordplay,  moonlight  romance.  His  people  are  com- 
mon people ;  that  is,  they  are  human  beings  like  other 
human  beings,  before  they  are  anything  else.  It 
is  this  constant  detection  of  ordinary  human  nature 
under  the  disguises  of  wealth  and  aristocracy  which 
misleads  Mr.  Saintsbury  into  calling  Trollope  a 
painter  of  middle-class  life.  His  painting  of  mid- 
dle-class life  is  good,  much  better  than  his  painting 
of  low  life;  but  certainly  his  best  work  is  on  the 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  101 

upper  classes, — dukes  and  duchesses,  earls  and 
barons,  bishops  and  Cabinet  ministers,  or,  more 
briefly,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  Only  somehow,  under 
his  quiet  but  penetrating  insight,  all  these  high  per- 
sonages, without  becoming  in  the  least  vulgar  or  un- 
natural,1 seem  to  drop  their  titles  and  tinsel  and 
appear  just  as  middling  as  the  middlest  of  us.  This, 
too,  without  any  of  those  constant  depreciatory  re- 
marks which  so  abound  in  Thackeray  and  constitute 
a  sort  of  back-handed  snobbishness.  Trollope's 
great  ones  are  simply  and  naturally  men  and  women, 
— nothing  more. 

So  far  as  plot  goes,  in  the  stricter  sense  of  the 
word,  Trollope  confesses  that  he  is  weak,  and  few 
will  be  found  to  differ  from  him.  Sir  Walter  Be- 
sant's  entertaining  pamphlet  containing  a  recipe  for 
producing  novels — Besant  novels — has  no  applica- 
tion here.  The  elaborate  machinery  of  scenarii,  with 
every  motive  and  every  climax  carefully  fitted  into 
place  before  one  line  is  written,  does  not  at  all  suit 
our  easy-going  improvisator.  "There  are  usually 
some  hours  of  agonising  doubt,  almost  of  despair, — 
so,  at  least,  it  has  been  with  me.  And  then,  with 
nothing  settled  in  my  brain  as  to  the  final  develop- 
ment of  events,  with  no  capability  of  settling  any- 

1  In  spite  of  some  odd  lapses  of  grammar  and  occasionally  of 
manners,  which  make  it  seem  as  if  Trollope  himself  had  not  always 
lived  with  dukes  and  bishops. 


102         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

thing,  but  with  a  most  distinct  conception  of  some 
character  or  characters,  I  have  rushed  at  the  work 
as  a  rider  rushes  at  a  fence  which  he  does  not  see." 
And  speaking  of  that  arch-plotter  of  plotters,  Wilkie 
Collins,  he  says :  "When  I  sit  down  to  write  a  novel, 
I  do  not  at  all  know  and  I  do  not  very  much  care 
how  it  is  to  end.  Wilkie  Collins  seems  so  to  con- 
struct his  that  he  not  only,  before  writing,  plans 
everything  out,  down  to  the  minutest  detail,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end;  but  then  plots  it  all  back 
again  to  see  that  there  is  no  piece  of  necessary  dove- 
tailing which  does  not  dovetail  with  absolute  accu- 
racy. .  .  .  Such  work  gives  me  no  pleasure.  I  am, 
however,  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  the  want  of 
pleasure  comes  from  a  fault  of  my  intellect." 

Yet,  although  the  dramatic  continuity  of  Trol- 
lope's  stories  is  seldom  complete,  we  constantly  come 
across  those  intensely  effective  and  striking  scenes 
which  are  perhaps  the  best  thing  in  a  good  novel, 
which  we  pause  to  read  twice  over,  which  cling  in 
the  memory  and  keep  returning  to  us,  yet  are  always 
fresh  and  delightful  when  we  come  to  them  again. 
Mr.  Slope's  slap  in  the  face  and  his  fierce  fight  with 
Mrs.  Proudie  for  the  domination  of  the  Bishop,  the 
pitched  battle  between  Mrs.  Proudie  and  Mrs. 
Grantly,  the  delicious  scene  between  Lady  Lufton 
and  Lucy  Roberts,  and  the  somewhat  similar  one 
between  the  archdeacon  and  Grace  Crawley,  Johnny 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  103 

Eames  and  the  bull,  Lord  Chiltern  riding  Dandolo, 
Madame  Max  and  the  Duchess  over  the  jewels, 
Phineas's  acquittal, — these  are  but  a  tithe  of  what 
lovers  of  Trollope  will  take  joy  in  recalling. 

The  life  of  such  scenes  comes  from  the  ever  pres- 
ent and  admirably  sustained  interest  of  character, 
and  this  interest  gives  to  Trollope's  novels  a  unity 
which  is  wanting  in  their  plots.  One  can  never  in- 
sist too  much  on  the  immense  superiority  of  English 
literature  in  general  over  all  others  on  this  point  of 
character.  Richness  and  fulness  of  human  life  is 
what  distinguishes  the  drama  of  Shakespeare  from 
that  of  Sophocles,  of  Calderon,  of  Racine,  of  Dumas 
fils.  An  excellence  of  the  same  kind,  unusual  in 
French  writers,  but  far  inferior  not  only  to  Shakes- 
peare's, but  to  Jonson's  or  Fletcher's  or  Massinger's, 
gives  Moliere  his  great  reputation.  So  in  the  novel. 
French  fiction  may  surpass  English  in  skill  of  con- 
struction, in  finished  elegance  of  style,  in  grace  and 
charm.  It  never  approaches  it  in  fertility,  variety, 
and  strength  of  character  production.  One  has  only 
to  compare  Dumas  with  Scott,  George  Sand  with 
George  Eliot,  to  feel  the  force  of  this.  Balzac,  like 
Moliere,  is  great  because  he  is  an  exception;  but, 
like  Moliere,  he  accomplishes  with  Titanic  effort 
what  Shakespeare,  Fielding,  Miss  Austen,  Thackeray, 
and  Dickens  do  with  divine  ease  and  unerring  in- 


104         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

stinct.  With  a  great  price  bought  he  this  freedom, 
but  they  were  born  free. 

Without  placing  Trollope  on  a  level  with  these 
greatest  masters,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  with  him 
also  character  is  a  strong  point.  He  always  recog- 
nises this  himself,  and  in  his  Autobiography  he  has 
some  admirable  observations  on  the  subject  in  con- 
nection with  the  sensational  in  novels.  Speaking 
of  "The  Bride  of  Lammermoor,"  of  "Esmond,"  of 
"Jane  Eyre,"  he  says:  "These  stories  charm  us,  not 
simply  because  they  are  tragic,  but  because  we  feel 
that  men  and  women  with  flesh  and  blood,  creatures 
with  whom  we  can  sympathise,  are  struggling  amid 
their  woes.  It  all  lies  in  that.  No  novel  is  any- 
thing, for  the  purposes  either  of  comedy  or  tragedy, 
unless  the  reader  can  sympathise  with  the  characters 
whose  names  he  finds  upon  the  pages.  .  .  .  Truth 
let  there  be,  truth  of  description,  truth  of  character, 
human  truth  as  to  men  and  women.  If  there  be 
such  truth,  I  do  not  know  that  a  novel  can  be  too 
sensational." 

From  the  very  fact  of  pitching  his  characters  so 
largely  on  a  middle  note,  of  choosing  them  and  keep- 
ing them  always  in  the  common  light  of  every  day, 
Trollope  gives  peculiarly  the  impression  of  having 
lived  with  them  and  of  making  us  live  with  them. 
He  often  goes  into  very  diffuse  analyses  of  the 
thought  and  actions  of  his  heroes  and  heroines;  yet 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  105 

in  so  doing  he  does  not  seem  to  sap  their  vitality  as 
do  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot.  The  reason  of  this 
is  that  he  does  not  appear  to  be  explaining,  but 
speculating.  He  does  not  say,  "I  made  this  ma- 
chine, and  I  can  tell  you  just  how  it  goes."  He 
talks  to  you  as  a  friend  would  talk  about  another 
friend  in  a  desultory,  twilight  chat,  before  a  smoul- 
dering fire.  His  characters  seem  to  exist  entirely  in- 
dependent of  their  author,  and  to  work  out  their 
own  natures  with  no  volition  or  even  control  from 
him.  This  is  doubtless  one  of  the  advantages  of 
his  rapid  and  instinctive  method  of  working. 

This  common  naturalness  of  Trollope's  charac- 
ters, this  feeling  that  we  have  lived  with  them  and 
known  them,  is  much  intensified  by  their  constant  re- 
appearance in  different  stories.  Of  course,  many 
other  authors  have  held  their  characters  along  from 
one  book  to  another;  but  neither  Dumas  nor  Balzac 
nor  Mr.  Howells  has  done  it  to  the  same  extent  as 
Trollope.  He  speaks  somewhere  of  his  lack  of 
memory;  but  surely  a  memory  approaching  instinct 
was  needed  to  carry  a  company  of  people  through 
thirty-two  volumes,1  with  long  intervals  of  time 

1  It  may  interest  some  of  Trollope's  admirers  to  have  a  complete 
list  of  the  long  series  of  connected  novels  which  include  most  of 
his  best  work.  The  six  chronicles  of  Barset  come  first  as  follows: 
The  Warden,  Barcfiester  Towers,  Doctor  Thome,  Framley  Par- 
sonage, The  Small  House  at  Allington,  The  Last  Chronicle  of 
Barset.  These  are  followed  by  the  parliamentary  novels,  the  con- 


io6         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

both  in  the  subjects  and  in  the  composition,  and  to 
keep  constantly  a  distinct  grasp  not  only  of  general 
traits  of  character  but  of  eyes  and  hair,  of  gait  and 
gesture.  In  this  vast  and  loose  sequence  of  events 
and  circumstances  slips  and  inaccuracies  doubtless 
occur,  but  their  rarity  is  wonderful. 

In  such  a  crowd  of  characters  we  can  hardly  single 
out  many  for  special  consideration.  Mr.  Saintsbury, 
who  has  written  of  Trollope  with  sympathy  and 
appreciation,  speaks  of  Mr.  Crawley  as  almost  the 
only  one  of  his  personages  who  stands  out  with  real 
originality  and  permanent  significance,  and  Trol- 
lope himself  has  an  unusual  affection  for  that  eccen- 
tric gentleman ;  but  Mr.  Crawley  is  too  exceptional, 
too  near  the  limits  of  sanity,  for  the  deepest  human 
interest.  How  inferior  he  is  to  the  archdeacon,  the 
admirable  archdeacon,  at  once  perfect  (artistically 
perfect)  man  and  perfect  English  clergyman !  How 
we  love  him,  with  his  conventional  dignity,  his  con- 
ventional religion,  his  bustling  meddlesomeness,  his 
tyrannous  impertinence,  his  sturdy  English  com- 
mon sense,  his  never- failing  ejaculation,  "Good 
Heavens!" — how  we  love  him!  And  in  a  far  dif- 
ferent fashion  how  we  love  Mr.  Harding,  one  of 
the  tenderest,  simplest,  most  touching  figures  in  fic- 

nection  between  them  being  maintained  through  Mr.  Palliser  arid 
some  others:  Can  You  Forgive  Her?,  Phineas  Finn,  The  Eustace 
Diamonds,  Phineas  Redux,  The  Prime  Minister,  The  Duke's  Chil- 
dren. 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  107 

tion,  whose  gentle  memory  brings  the  tears  to  one's 
eyes !  How  we  should  delight,  unobserved,  to  watch 
him  in  one  of  the  stalls  of  his  beloved  cathedral 
choir,  turning  over  the  pages  of  his  own  church 
music,  gently  and  absently  playing  seraphic  airs  on 
an  imaginary  violoncello ! 

"Heard   melodies   are   sweet,    but   those   unheard 
Are  sweeter." 

Mr.  Harding,  perhaps  the  most  striking  of  all  Trol- 
lope's  creations,  because  so  totally  unlike  Trollope 
himself,  whereas  the  archdeacon  is  clearly  the  very 
image  of  the  author  of  his  being. 

Then  the  women — Mrs.  Proudie, — we  all  detest 
her.  Yet  we  have  a  sneaking  fondness  for  her,  too. 
There  is  one  of  the  marks  of  large  humanness  in 
Trollope :  he  brings  out  something  not  wholly  hate- 
ful in  the  worst  character  he  touches.  The  masters 
of  human  life  in  literature,  Shakespeare  and  Scott, 
have  the  same  trait.  And  Lady  Glencora, — how 
well  we  know  her,  and  who  does  not  feel  her  fasci- 
nation! Trollope's  own  observations  on  her  show 
how  far  a  true  artist's  judgment  may  be  below  his 
genius :  "She  has,  or  has  been  intended  to  have,  be- 
neath the  thin  stratum  of  her  follies  a  basis  of  good 
principle,  which  enabled  her  to  live  down  the  origi- 
nal wrong  that  was  done  to  her,  and  taught  her  to 
endeavour  to  do  her  duty  in  the  position  to  which  she 


io8         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

was  called."  And  this  is  Lady  Glen, — the  sprightly, 
the  mobile,  the  petulant,  the  wilful,  the  bewitching 
Lady  Glen!  It  would  be  instructive  if  we  had  the 
original  skeletons  of  Rosalind  and  Diana  Vernon  to 
range  and  ticket  on  the  same  shelf  with  this  inert 
anatomy. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  what  dramatic  slang  would  call 
"character  parts"  that  Trollope  succeeds.  In  the 
still  more  difficult  task  of  giving  individual  life  to 
heroes  and  heroines  he  shows  himself  equally  skilful. 
Phineas  Finn,  for  example,  is  intended  to  be  and  is 
a  very  ordinary  person;  yet  an  indescribable  and  in- 
definable something  of  loveableness  pervades  his 
character  everywhere,  so  that  one  cannot  choose  but 
love  him.  As  for  Trollope's  girls, — Eleanor  Har- 
ding, Mary  Thome,  Lucy  Roberts,  Lily  Dale,  Grace 
Crawley,  Violet  Effingham,  Isabel  Boncassen,  and 
the  rest, — they  are  charming,  and  at  the  same  time 
they  are  remarkably  distinct:  each  keeps  her  indi- 
viduality in  the  midst  of  the  general  fascination. 

The  style  in  which  Trollope  writes  about  all 
these  personages  is  what  might  be  expected  from 
the  author's  method  of  working, — loose,  free,  easily 
followed.  After  all,  perhaps  this  is  the  best  style 
for  story-telling,  when  a  man  has  the  gift  of  it.  The 
curious  felicity  of  Flaubert  and  Stevenson  is  a 
precious  thing;  but  one  never  escapes  the  sense  that 
it  is  born  of  painful  effort,  and  one  feels  a  little 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  109 

guilty  not  to  enjoy  it  with  a  certain  effort  also.  The 
Goncourts  speak  somewhere  of  the  struggle  with 
which  an  author  tears  forth  a  beautiful  page  from  his 
very  vitals.  Trollope  never  tore  any  pages  from  his 
vitals;  he  had  no  vitals,  literaryly  speaking.  Easy, 
rapid,  graceful  improvisation,  at  the  rate  of  a  thou- 
sand words  an  hour,  as  aforesaid,  was  good  enough 
for  him — and  for  most  of  his  readers.  Gautier  said 
that  the  production  of  copy  was  a  natural  function 
with  George  Sand.  So  it  was  with  Trollope:  he 
wrote  as  easily  as  he  breathed, — or  hunted, — yet  his 
style  is  full  of  individuality.  It  has  neither  dignity 
nor  power  nor  remarkable  precision;  but  it  has  a 
peculiar  homely,  personal  flavour,  as  of  a  man  loosely 
noting  his  natural  thought,  writing  in  old  clothes, 
with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  a  glass  of  old  wine 
beside  him.  The  very  tricks  of  it — that  most  marked 
one,  which  Mr.  Saintsbury  has  noted,  of  repeating 
and  emphasising  words — are  characteristic  of  the 
man,  and  one  gets  attached  to  them  as  to  him. 

As  for  observation,  Trollope  had  little,  so  far  as 
the  external  world  is  concerned;  but  his  moral  in- 
sight is  close  and  keen  on  the  somewhat  superficial 
plane  to  which  he  was  limited  by  nature.  "That 
which  enables  the  avaricious  and  unjust  to  pass 
scatheless  through  the  world  is  not  the  ignorance  of 
the  world  as  to  their  sins,  but  the  indifference  of 
the  world  as  to  whether  they  be  sinful  or  no."  "The 


no         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

little  sacrifices  of  society  are  all  made  by  women 
as  are  also  the  great  sacrifices  of  life.  A  man  who 
is  good  for  anything  is  always  ready  for  his  duty, 
and  so  is  a  good  woman  for  her  sacrifice."  "Men 
are  cowards  before  women  till  they  become  tyrants." 
"Why  is  it  that  girls  so  constantly  do  this"?  So  fre- 
quently ask  men  who  have  loved  them  to  be  present 
at  their  marriages  with  other  men1?  There  is  no 
triumph  in  it;  it  is  done  in  sheer  kindness  and  affec- 
tion. 'You  can't  marry  me  yourself,'  the  lady  seems 
to  say,  'but  the  next  greatest  blessing  I  can  offer 
you,  you  shall  have:  you  shall  see  me  married  to 
somebody  else.'  I  fully  appreciate  the  intention,  but 
in  all  honesty  I  doubt  the  eligibility  of  the  proffered 
entertainment." 

The  last  quotation  shows  the  sort  of  good-natured 
satire  which  keeps  one  smiling  through  a  great  part  of 
Trollope's  work.  Mr.  Howells,  in  his  otherwise  most 
appreciative  criticism,  charges  Trollope  with  a  lack 
of  humour.  To  most  of  Trollope's  admirers  it  seems 
that  his  novels  are  full  of  humour;  not  indeed  over- 
charged and  farcical,  like  Dickens's,  always  re- 
strained within  the  limits  of  nature,  but  true  humour 
nevertheless. 

I  have  said  nothing  as  yet,  however,  of  that  which 
constitutes  the  greatest  claim  of  Trollope's  novels 
to  permanence;  I  mean,  their  picture  of  contempo- 
rary English  life.  Even  where  plot  and  character 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  111 

are  weakest  there  is  always  something  of  vitality  and 
truth,  and  so  of  interest,  in  the  background  and  sur- 
roundings; but  when  we  come  to  the  Barchester  and 
Parliamentary  series,  the  richness  and  accuracy  of 
detail  are  wonderful.  Every  syllable  that  deals  with 
Barchester  has  the  accent  of  truth.  I  have  already 
referred  to  Archdeacon  Grantly,  who  is  so  clerical 
and  so  English  as  well  as  so  human;  but  all  his  sur- 
roundings, the  bishops  and  the  deans  and  canons,  and 
the  wives  of  these  dignitaries  and  their  very  children, 
and  all  that  they  say  and  do,  bring  the  quaint,  quiet 
air  of  the  cathedral  town  about  us.  Surely  future 
ages  will  turn  to  Trollope  more  than  to  any  other 
author  for  a  true  and  vivid  picture  of  this  life,  when 
it  shall  have  wholly  passed  away. 

The  Parliamentary  atmosphere  is  naturally  less 
peculiar  in  its  interest,  but  its  appeal  is  stronger  on 
that  very  account.  We  know  by  Trol lope's  own 
confession  that  he  failed  to  obtain  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  We  know  from  the  same  source 
that  to  obtain  such  a  seat  was  one  of  the  ambitions 
of  his  life.  It  does  not  seem  possible  that  if  he  had 
obtained  it  he  could  have  acquired  a  more  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  details  of  parliamentary  practice. 
Certainly  no  formal  history  could  give  us  half  the 
insight  into  the  machinery  of  government  that  we 
get  from  him.  All  the  technicalities  of  majorities, 
cabinets,  readings,  questions,  committees,  whips,  and 


112         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

the  rest  of  it,  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  candidacies,  elec- 
tions, ballotings  with  egg-throwing  accompaniment, 
take  life  and  significance  from  the  human  figures 
with  which  they  are  associated,  and  in  turn  give  to 
these  human  figures  a  body  and  a  substance  which 
would  otherwise  be  lacking. 

Then  the  hunting, — oh,  the  hunting!  I  have  re- 
ferred to  it  before,  but  it  is  worth  mentioning  ten 
times  over.  Unquestionably  it  is  the  best  part  of 
Trollope.  Others  have  described  it  from  the  desk 
and  the  chimney  corner;  but  he  gives  it  fresh  from 
the  field,  crisp  with  the  hoarfrost  of  the  autumn 
morning,  glowing  with  the  very  rush  and  ardour  of 
the  thing  itself.  Oh,  the  deep  voice  of  the  hounds, 
and  the  red  coats  flashing,  and  the  stride  of  the 
steeds,  and  the  thick  of  the  hurly-burly!  It  is 
dragged  into  novel  after  novel,  as  Trollope  himself 
admits;  yet  the  novels  that  are  without  it  seem  by 
comparison  to  be  only  half  alive. 

With  this  note  of  external,  physical  life  and  ac- 
tivity it  is  well  to  leave  Trollope.  As  I  said  in  the 
beginning,  he  is  a  true  realist,  a  common  man  giving 
the  views  and  the  feelings  of  common  men.  His 
moral  attitude  is  always  proper  and  decent,  some- 
times even  to  the  extent  of  sermonising;  but  he  has 
no  spiritual  ideal,  no  sense  of  passionate  moral  strug- 
gle, no  aspiration  after  the  unseen  and  the  divine. 
Stuffed  full  of  British  conventions,  he  is,  and  will 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  113 

remain,  the  loyal  interpreter  of  British — and  other — 
Philistinism,  all  the  more  loyal  because  instinctive 
and  unconscious.  What  Philistine  would  not  die 
happy  if  he  could  sum  up  his  career  in  the  following 
paragraph?  "If  the  rustle  of  a  woman's  petticoat 
has  ever  stirred  my  blood,  if  a  cup  of  wine  has  been 
a  joy  to  me,  if  I  have  thought  tobacco  at  midnight 
in  pleasant  company  to  be  one  of  the  elements  of  an 
earthly  paradise,  if  now  and  again  I  have  somewhat 
recklessly  fluttered  a  five-pound  note  over  a  card 
table,  of  what  matter  is  it  to  any  reader*?  I  have  be- 
trayed no  woman.  Wine  has  brought  me  to  no  sor- 
row. It  has  been  the  companionship  of  smoking  that 
I  have  loved  rather  than  the  habit.  I  have  never 
desired  to  win  money,  and  I  have  lost  none.  To 
enjoy  the  excitement  of  pleasure,  but  to  be  free  from 
its  vices  and  evil  effects,  to  have  the  sweet  and  leave 
the  bitter  untasted, — that  has  been  my  study.  The 
preachers  tell  us  that  this  is  impossible.  It  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  succeeded  fairly  well." 

1901 


V 
AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK 


AN    ODD    SORT    OF    POPULAR    BOOK 

MULTIPLICITY  of  editions  does  not  make 
a  book  a  classic.  Otherwise  Worcester's 
Dictionary  and  Mrs.  Lincoln's  Cook-Book 
might  almost  rival  Shakespeare.  Nevertheless,  when 
a  work  which  has  little  but  its  literary  quality  to 
recommend  it,  achieves  sudden  and  permanent  popu- 
larity, it  is  safe  to  assume  that  there  is  something 
about  it  which  will  repay  curious  consideration.  As 
to  the  popularity  of  "The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy" 
there  can  be  no  dispute.  "Scarce  any  book  of  philol- 
ogy in  our  land  hath,  on  so  short  a  time,  passed 
through  so  many  editions,"  says  old  Fuller.  The 
first  of  these  editions  appeared  in  1621.  It  was  fol- 
lowed by  four  others  during  the  few  years  preceding 
the  author's  death  in  1640.  Three  more  editions 
were  published  at  different  times  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  eighteenth  century  was  apparently 
contented  to  read  Burton  in  the  folios ;  but  the  book 
was  reprinted  in  the  year  1800,  and  since  then  it 
has  been  issued  in  various  forms  at  least  as  many 

117 


ii8         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

as  forty  times,  though  never  as  yet  with  what  might 
be  called  thorough  editing. 

Quantity  of  approval  is  in  this  case  well  sup- 
ported by  quality.  Milton  showed  his  admiration, 
as  usual,  by  imitation.  Sterne  conveyed  passage 
after  passage  almost  bodily  into  "Tristram  Shandy." 
Southey's  odd  book,  "The  Doctor,"  follows  Burton 
closely  in  manner  and  often  in  matter.  Dr.  John- 
son said  that  "The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy"  was 
the  only  book  that  ever  took  him  out  of  bed  two 
hours  sooner  than  he  wished  to  rise ;  large  commenda- 
tion surely,  and  I  have  never  found  any  other,  even 
of  the  most  devout  Burtonians,  quite  ready  to  echo 
it.  Lamb  was  a  reader,  adorer,  and  imitator;  Keats, 
the  first  two,  at  any  rate.  Finally,  Mr.  Saintsbury 
assures  us  that  "for  reading  either  continuous  or 
desultory,  either  grave  or  gay,  at  all  times  of  life  and 
in  all  moods  of  temper,  there  are  few  authors  who 
stand  the  test  of  practice  so  well  as  the  author  of 
'The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.'  "  For  all  that,  I 
would  not  advise  the  general  reader  to  buy  a  copy 
in  too  great  haste.  He  will,  perhaps,  find  it  easier 
to  read  about  the  book  than  to  read  it. 

What  we  know  of  the  life  of  Robert  Burton  is 
a  very  small  matter,  as  is  the  case  with  so  many 
of  his  greater  contemporaries.  He  was  born  at  Lind- 
ley  in  Leicestershire,  in  1577,  thirteen  years  after 
Shakespeare,  four  years  after  Ben  Jonson.  He  was 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  119 

at  School  at  Sutton-Coldfield,  in  Warwickshire,  and 
at  Nuneaton,  till  he  was  seventeen.  He  then  went 
to  Brasenose  College.  In  1599  he  was  elected 
student  of  Christ  Church.  In  1614  he  received 
the  degree  of  B.D.,  and  in  1616  he  became  vicar  of 
St.  Thomas,  in  the  west  suburb  of  Oxford.  About 
1636  he  added  to  this  cure  the  rectory  of  Segrave  in 
Leicestershire.  Besides  the  Anatomy  he  wrote  a 
Latin  comedy,  "Philosophaster,"  unusually  clever, 
and  brilliant  in  its  kind.  He  died  in  1640,  and  was 
buried  in  the  choir  of  Christ  Church  Cathedral.  The 
little  bit  of  gossip  narrated  by  Wood  is  amusingly 
illustrative  of  the  mythical  character  so  apt  to  at- 
tach itself  to  the  solitary  scholar.  It  seems  that 
Burton's  death  occurred  at  or  very  near  the  time 
which  had  been  foretold  by  himself  from  the  calcu- 
lation of  his  own  nativity;  in  consequence  of  which 
"several  of  the  students  did  not  forbear  to  whisper 
among  themselves  that,  rather  than  there  should  be 
a  mistake  in  the  calculation,  he  sent  up  his  soul  to 
heaven  through  a  slip  about  his  neck."  With  the 
exception  of  a  few  other  scraps  of  doubtful  hearsay 
and  of  the  full  text  of  his  will,  this  is  all  of  im- 
portance that  has  come  down  to  us  about  the  author 
of  "The  Anatomy."  It  is  rather  brief,  when  one 
realises  that,  if  he  had  lived  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  later,  he  would  probably  have  been  honoured 


120         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

with  two  solid  volumes  of  so-called  biography,  like 
many  another  much  less  worthy  of  it. 

Far  more  than  most  great  writers,  however,  Bur- 
ton left  the  reflection  of  his  life  and  character  in 
his  work,  and  "The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy"  may 
be  called  one  of  the  most  intensely  personal  books 
ever  written.  To  be  sure,  the  author  does  not  con- 
stantly and  directly  refer  to  himself  and  his  own 
affairs.  Nevertheless,  the  impress  of  his  spirit  is 
felt  on  every  page. 

Several  of  the  biographical  facts  above  mentioned 
are  derived  from  casual  remarks  dropped  here  and 
there  throughout  the  book.  Of  his  mother,  Mistress 
Dorothy  Burton,  he  says  that  she  had  "excellent 
skill  in  Chirurgery,  sore  eyes,  aches,  etc.,"  and  that 
she  had  "done  many  famous  and  good  cures  upon 
divers  poor  folks  that  were  otherwise  destitute  of 
help."  He  gives  us  a  reminiscence  of  his  boyhood: 
"They  think  no  slavery  in  the  world  (as  once  I  did 
myself)  like  to  that  of  a  grammar  scholar."  He 
speaks  with  a  grain  of  bitterness  of  a  younger 
brother's  lot:  "I  do  much  respect  and  honour  true 
gentry  and  nobility;  I  was  born  of  worshipful  par- 
ents myself,  in  an  ancient  family;  but  I  am  a 
younger  brother,  it  concerns  me  not." 

He  gives  us  many  glimpses  of  his  lonely  scholar's 
life.  In  his  youth  he  was  ambitious:  "I  was  once 
so  mad  to  bustle  abroad  and  seek  about  for  prefer- 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  121 

ment,  tire  myself,  and  trouble  all  my  friends."  But 
the  world  is  cold,  friendship  formal  and  touches  not 
the  heart:  "I  have  had  some  such  noble  friends, 
acquaintances,  and  scholars,  but  most  part  they  and 
I  parted  as  we  met;  they  gave  me  as  much  as  I  re- 
quested and  that  was — ."  His  habits  are  those  of 
the  recluse  and  ascetic:  "I  am  a  bachelor  myself  and 
lead  a  monastic  life  in  college."  "I  am  aqua  potor, 
drink  no  wine  at  all."  Yet  he  loves  the  sweet  of 
nature,  too,  if  the  bitter  thirst  of  knowledge  would 
permit :  "No  man  ever  took  more  delight  in  springs, 
woods,  groves,  gardens,  walks,  fishponds,  rivers,  etc." 
Force  of  circumstance,  lack  of  opportunity,  younger 
brotherhood,  timidity,  have  kept  him  secluded  with- 
in the  walls  of  great  libraries,  have  piled  huge  dusty 
tomes  upon  the  human  beating  of  his  heart.  "I  have 
lived  a  silent,  sedentary,  solitary,  private  life  in  the 
University,  as  long  almost  as  Xenocrates  in  Athens, 
to  learn  wisdom  as  he  did,  penned  up  most  part 
in  my  study."  Yet  if  the  Fates  had  willed  other- 
wise, the  man  would  have  been  consenting.  Let  us 
note  right  here  that  this  is  the  whole  charm  of  Bur- 
ton and  his  great  book.  It  is  no  dry  treatise  of  a 
grey-haired  pedant,  thumbing  contentedly  forever 
dull  volumes  of  mouldy  tradition.  For  all  its  quaint 
garb  and  thorny  aspect  it  is  a  great  human  docu- 
ment, the  work  of  a  man  whose  bodily  life  was 
passed  in  his  study,  but  whose  senses  were  all  keenly, 


122         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

pantingly  alert  to  catch  the  motion  of  the  wide  world 
beyond.  Beauty — he  adores  beauty.  "This  amaz- 
ing, confounding,  admirable  beauty;  'tis  nature's 
crown,  gold,  and  glory."  Love — Oh,  how  he  could 
have  loved!  "I  confess  I  am  but  a  novice,  a  con- 
templator  only,"  he  writes  of  it;  "yet  homo  sum,  I 
am  a  man,  and  not  altogether  inexpert  in  this  sub- 
ject." Like  Flaubert,  he  doubtless  leaned  forth  from 
his  study  window  on  many  a  moonlit  night,  and 
heard  a  company  of  revellers  with  merry  song  and 
pleasant  jest,  and  caught  the  dim  flutter  of  a  white 
gown,  and  found  all  his  books  and  learning  mere 
dust  beside  the  laughter  and  the  passion  of  the  world. 

And  so  he  grew  melancholy,  as  often  happens  in 
such  cases.  When  a  man  gets  these  fits  on  him,  he 
may  either  rush  out  into  active  life  for  the  sake  of 
contrast,  he  may  marry,  or  go  into  politics,  or  do 
something  even  more  rash  and  criminal;  or  he  may 
cut  his  throat;  or  he  may  write  a  book.  On  the 
whole,  the  last  method  is  the  most  to  be  recom- 
mended. Burton  adopted  it;  and,  with  homoeo- 
pathic ingenuity,  he  wrote  a  book  on  melancholy  it- 
self. "I  write  against  melancholy,  by  being  busy  to 
avoid  melancholy.  .  .  .  Shall  I  say,  my  mistress 
melancholy,  my  Egeria,  or  my  evil  genius  *?" 

The  loose  and  literary  sense  in  which  Burton  uses 
the  word  melancholy  is  characteristic  of  the  tone 
of  his  book.  Without  really  attempting  any  pre- 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  123 

cise  definition,  or,  rather,  having  confused  the  reader 
with  a  multitude  of  definitions  taken  from  all  the 
authors  under  the  sun,  he  proceeds  to  include  every 
form  of  nervous  depression,  from  a  mere  temporary 
fit  of  the  blues  to  acute  or  chronic  mania  and  insanity. 
At  the  same  time,  being  a  man  of  logical  and  system- 
atic turn  of  mind,  he  imposes  on  others,  and  per- 
haps on  himself,  with  a  great  show  of  formal  and 
scientific  treatment.  The  work  is  mapped  out  into 
divisions,  partitions,  sections,  members,  subsections, 
arranged  in  as  awful  order  of  deduction  as  Euclid 
or  the  Ethics  of  Spinoza.  But  let  no  one  be  alarmed. 
This  is  pure  matter  of  form.  The  author  speaks  of 
what  he  likes,  when  he  likes.  Occasionally  he  takes 
the  pains  to  recognise  that  he  is  digressing,  as  in  the 
delicious  chapters  entitled,  "A  Digression  of 
Spirits,"  "A  Digression  of  Air."  And  then,  with  a 
sigh,  he  tries  to  call  himself  back  to  the  work  in 
hand.  "But  my  melancholy  spaniels  quest,  my  game 
is  sprung,  and  I  must  suddenly  come  down  and  fol- 
low." The  game  leads  him  into  strange  places,  how- 
ever. The  vast  and  checkered  meadow  of  the  hu- 
man heart  is  his  hunting-ground.  Melancholy  is  the 
skeleton  in  the  closet,  always  popping  out  at  odd 
times  and  in  unexpected  corners;  but  he  keeps  it 
wreathed  with  bright  flowers,  and  made  sweet  with 
strange  and  subtle  savours,  and  brilliant  and  spark- 
ling with  jewels  of  quaint  wit  and  wandering  fancy. 


124         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Nevertheless,  when  he  does  discuss  his  subject  it- 
self, he  has  bits  of  sound  common  sense,  useful  to- 
day and  always,  like  his  recommendation  of  "the 
three  Salernitan  Doctors,  D.  Merryman,  D.  Diet, 
and  D.  Quiet,  which  cure  all  diseases." 

Some  one  may  object  that  this  saying  is  quoted, 
and  not  Burton's  own  invention.  Certainly,  Burton 
is  the  greatest  quoter  in  literature,  far  surpassing 
even  Montaigne.  His  mind  was  full  of  the  thoughts 
of  others,  and  he  poured  them  forth  together  with 
his  own  in  inextricable  mixture.  He  was  a  man 
drenched,  drowned  in  learning,  not  learning  of  the 
quick,  smart,  practical,  modern  type,  which  enables 
its  possessor  to  give  interviews  on  the  inhabitants  of 
Mars  and  testify  on  poisons  at  a  murder  trial,  but 
mediaeval  learning,  drowsy,  strange,  unprofitable, 
and  altogether  lovely.  In  the  discussion  of  these 
melancholy  matters  all  preceding  literature  is  laid 
under  contribution,  not  only  the  classics,  but  count- 
less writers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  doubtless  respectable 
in  their  own  day  and  possibly  in  Burton's,  but  now 
so  dead  that  the  reader  stares  and  gasps  at  them 
and  wonders  whether  his  author  is  not  inventing 
references,  like  the  "Oracle"  in  "The  Innocents 
Abroad."  Melanelius,  Rufus,  Aetius,  describe 
melancholy  "to  be  a  bad  and  peevish  disease."  Her- 
cules de  Saxonia  approves  this  opinion,  as  do 
Fuchsius,  Arnoldus,  Guianerius,  and  others — not  un- 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  125 

naturally.  Paulus  takes  a  different  view,  and  Haly- 
abbas  still  another.  Aretseus  calls  it  "a  perpetual 
anguish  of  the  soul,  fastened  on  one  thing,  without 
an  ague."  In  this  brilliant  but  hazy  statement  the 
absence  of  ague  is  at  least  a  comfort.  It  is  dis- 
quieting, indeed,  to  find  that  "this  definition  of  his 
Merrialis  taxeth" ;  but  we  are  reassured  by  the  solid 
support  of  CElianus  Montaltus.  And  so  on. 

Pure  pedantry,  you  will  say.  Well,  yes.  It  would 
be,  if  Burton  were  not  saved  from  the  extreme  of 
pedantry  by  a  touch  of  humour,  which  makes  you 
somehow  feel  that  he  does  not  take  all  this  quite 
seriously  himself.  Yet  it  is  vary  hard  for  him  to 
look  at  anything  except  through  the  eyes  of  some  re- 
mote authority.  We  have  heard  him  speak  of  his 
mother's  excellent  cures.  It  seems  that  one  of  her 
favourite  remedies  was  "an  amulet  of  a  spider  in  a 
nutshell  lapped  in  silk,"  super-sovereign  for  the  ague. 
Burton  finds  it  hard  to  swallow  this;  it  was  "most 
absurd  and  ridiculous;  for  what  has  a  spider  to  do 
with  a  fever*?"  Ah,  but  one  day  "rambling  amongst 
authors  (as  often  I  do)  I  found  this  very  medicine 
in  Dioscorides,  approved  by  Matthiolus,  repeated  by 
Aldrovandus.  ...  I  began  to  have  a  better  opin- 
ion of  it,  and  to  give  more  credit  to  amulets."  I 
can  see  from  here  Mistress  Dorothy  Burton's  lovely 
scorn  at  being  confirmed  by  Dioscorides.  What  did 
she  care  for  Dioscorides?  Did  she  not  have  the 


126         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

recipe  from  her  great-aunt,  and  has  she  not  proved  it 
a  dozen  times  herself? 

This  trick  of  constant  quoting  has  led  some  shal- 
low people  to  set  Burton  down  as  a  mere  quoter  and 
nothing  else.  There  could  be  no  greater  mistake. 
It  is  the  activity  and  independence  of  his  own  mind 
which  make  him  so  eager  to  watch  and  compare  the 
minds  of  others;  and  while  he  profited  by  their 
thinking,  he  was  abundantly  able  to  do  his  own, 
as  every  page  of  his  book  shows.  One  need  ask  no 
better  specimen  of  strong,  shrewd,  satirical  reflec- 
tion than  the  sketch  of  a  Utopian  commonwealth  in 
the  introduction  which  purports  to  be  by  Democri- 
tus,  Junior;  and  of  many  other  passages  we  may  say 
the  same. 

Nor  was  our  author  lacking  in  deep,  human  sym- 
pathy, although  his  solitary  life  and  keen  intellect 
disposed  him  to  be  a  trifle  cynical.  The  celebrated 
bit  with  the  refrain  "Ride  on!" — so  brilliantly  imi- 
tated by  Sterne — shows  a  pitiful  appreciation  of  sor- 
row and  misery,  which,  indeed,  are  abundantly  recog- 
nised everywhere  in  "The  Anatomy." 

But  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  illustration  of 
Burton's  intense  appetite  for  humanity  is  his  fre- 
quent reference  to  common  daily  life  and  manners. 
M.  Anatole  France  tells  us  that  the  author  of  the 
"Imitation"  must  certainly  have  been  a  man  of  the 
world  before  he  betook  himself  to  his  lonely  cell  and 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  127 

pious  meditation.  If  Burton  never  was  a  man  of 
the  world,  he  would  certainly  have  liked  to  be  one. 
He  peers  out  from  behind  the  bars  of  his  retreat  and 
catches  every  possible  glimpse  of  the  curious  things 
which  are  shut  away  from  him.  Shreds  of  fashion, 
hints  of  frivolity,  quips  of  courtiers,  the  flash  of 
swords  and  glittering  of  jewels — he  will  find  a  place 
for  them.  Woman  fascinates  him  especially, — that 
singular  creature  who  apparently  cares  nothing  for 
books  and  study,  laughs,  weeps,  scolds,  caresses,  with- 
out any  reasonable  cause  whatever.  Certainly  no 
philosopher  should  take  any  notice  of  her, — yet  they 
all  do.  And  he  exhausts  himself  in  cunning  heaps 
of  observation,  vain  interrogations  of  mysterious 
boudoirs:  "Why  do  they  make  such  glorious  shows 
with  their  scarfs,  feathers,  fans,  masks,  furs,  laces, 
tiffanies,  ruffs,  falls,  calls,  cuffs,  damasks,  velvets, 
tinsel,  cloth  of  gold,  silver,  tissue  ?  With  colours  of 
heavens,  stars,  planets ;  the  strength  of  metals,  stones, 
odours,  flowers,  birds,  beasts,  fishes,  and  whatsoever 
Africa,  Asia,  America,  sea,  land,  art  and  industry 
of  man  can  afford"?  Whv  do  they  use  such  novelty 
of  inventions;  such  new-fangled  tires;  and  spend 
such  inestimable  sums  on  them"?  .  .  .  Why  is  it  but, 
as  a  day-net  catcheth  larks,  to  make  young  men  stoop 
unto  them*?"  And  old  philosophers  also,  he  might 
have  added. 

I  have  taken  this  passage  from  the  section  on 


128         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"Love  Melancholy" ;  for  Burton  devotes  a  large  por- 
tion of  his  work  to  that  delightful  subject.  He  feels 
it  necessary  to  make  some  apology  for  entering  upon 
it.  Some  persons  will  think  it  hardly  becoming  in 
so  grave,  reverend,  and  dignified  a  gentleman, — a 
clergyman,  too.  But  he  has  good  authors  on  his 
side:  "I  excuse  myself  with  Peter  Godefridus,  Val- 
leriola,  Ficinus,  Langius,  Cadmus,  Milesius,  who 
writ  fourteen  books  of  love."  Surely,  he  would  be 
very  critical  who  should  ask  more  than  this. 

The  apology  once  made,  with  what  gusto  he  sets 
forth,  how  he  luxuriates  in  golden  tidbits  from 
love's  delicate  revels!  "A  little  soft  hand,  pretty 
little  mouth,  small,  fine,  long  fingers,  'tis  that  which 
Apollo  did  admire  in  Daphne."  "Of  all  eyes  (by 
the  way)  black  are  most  amiable,  enticing,  and  fair." 
"Oh,  that  pretty  tone,  her  divine  and  lovely  looks, 
her  everything  lovely,  sweet,  amiable,  and  pretty, 
pretty,  pretty."  Is  it  not  the  mere  ecstasy  of  amor- 
ous frenzy1?  Again,  he  gives  us  a  very  banquet,  a 
rosy  wreath  of  old,  simple  English  names,  a  per- 
fect old-fashioned  garden :  "Modest  Matilda,  pretty, 
pleasing  Peg.  sweet,  singing  Susan,  mincing  merry 
Moll,  dainty  dancing  Doll,  neat  Nancy,  jolly  Jane, 
nimble  Nell,  kissing  Kate,  bouncing  Bess  with  black 
eyes,  fair  Phillis  with  fine  white  hands,  fiddling 
Frank,  tall  Tib,  slender  Sib,  etc."  Do  you  not  hear 
their  merry  laughter,  as  he  heard  it  in  his  dim  study, 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  129 

a  dream  of  fair  faces  and  bright  forms  twisting,  and 
turning,  and  flashing  back  and  forth  under  the  har- 
vest moon? 

Yet,  after  all,  love  is  a  tyrant  and  a  traitor,  a 
meteor  rushing  with  blind  fury  among  the  placid 
orbs  of  life.  What  is  a  man  to  make  of  these  wild 
contrasts  and  tragical  transitions?  At  one  moment 
the  lover  seems  to  be  on  the  pinnacle  of  felicity,  "his 
soul  soused,  imparadised,  imprisoned  in  his  lady; 
he  can  do  nothing,  think  of  nothing  but  her;  she  is 
his  cynosure,  Hesperus,  and  Vesper,  his  morning  and 
evening  star,  his  goddess,  his  mistress,  his  life,  his 
soul,  his  everything;  dreaming,  waking,  she  is  al- 
ways in  his  mouth;  his  heart,  eyes,  ears,  and  all  his 
thoughts  are  full  of  her."  But  then  something  goes 
wrong  and  the  note  is  altogether  changed.  "When 
this  young  gallant  is  crossed  in  his  love,  he  laments, 
and  cries,  and  roars  downright.  'The  virgin's 
gone  and  I  am  gone,  she's  gone,  she's  gone,  and  what 
shall  I  do?  Where  shall  I  find  her?  whom  shall  I 
ask?  What  will  become  of  me ?  I  am  weary  of  this 
life,  sick,  mad,  and  desperate.'  " 

It  becomes  the  sage,  then,  to  be  clear  of  these  toys. 
If  he  is  to  write  about  Love  Melancholy,  let  him 
cure  it.  Let  him  hold  up  a  warning  to  the  unwary. 
What  is  the  use  of  days  and  nights  spent  in  toiling 
over  learned  authors,  if  the  young  and  foolish  are 
not  to  have  the  benefit  of  one's  experience?  If  only 


130         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

the  young  and  foolish  would  profit!  If  only  the 
unwary  would  beware !  Still,  we  must  do  our  part. 
Let  us  remind  them  that  beauty  fades.  It  is  a  rather 
well-known  fact,  but  youth  is  so  prone  to  forget  it. 
"Suppose  thou  beholdest  her  in  a  frosty  morning, 
in  cold  weather,  in  some  passion  or  perturbation  of 
mind,  weeping,  chafing,  etc.,  rivelled  and  ill-favoured 
to  behold.  .  .  .  Let  her  use  all  helps  art  and  nature 
can  yield;  be  like  her,  and  her,  and  whom  thou  wilt, 
or  all  these  in  one;  a  little  sickness,  a  fever,  small- 
pox, wound,  scar,  loss  of  an  eye  or  limb,  a  violent 
passion,  mars  all  in  an  instant,  disfigures  all."  Then 
let  us  exalt  the  charms  of  a  bachelor's  life.  It  has 
its  weak  points,  as  I  feel,  writing  here  alone  in  the 
dust  and  chill,  with  nothing  but  books  about  me, 
no  prattle  of  children,  no  merry  chatter  of  busy 
women.  But  what  then?  It  is  quieter,  after  all. 
"Consider  how  contentedly,  quietly,  neatly,  plenti- 
fully, sweetly,  and  how  merrily  he  lives !  He  hath 
no  man  to  care  for  but  himself,  none  to  please,  no 
charge,  none  to  control  him,  is  tied  to  no  residence, 
no  cure  to  serve,  may  go  and  come  when,  whither, 
live  where  he  will,  his  own  master,  and  do  what  he 
list  himself."  Nevertheless,  it  all  sounds  a  little 
hollow,  and  as  I  sit  here  in  the  winter  midnight  with 
my  old  pipe,  I  wonder  if  it  might  not  have  been 
otherwise. 

I  have  made  my  quotations  with  very  small  skill, 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  131 

if  the  ingenious  reader  does  not  by  this  time  feel  that 
Burton  was  in  his  way  a  great  master  of  style.  His 
skill  and  power  as  a  writer,  more  than  anything  else, 
show  that  he  was  not  a  mere  pedant  or  Dryasdust. 
It  is  true,  he  himself  disclaims  any  such  futile  pre- 
occupation. He  has  not  "amended  the  style  which 
now  flows  remissly,  as  it  was  first  conceived."  His 
book  is  "writ  with  as  small  deliberation  as  I  do  ordi- 
narily speak,  without  all  affectation  of  big  words, 
fustian  phrases,  jingling  terms."  But  the  facts  belie 
him,  and  one  shudders  to  think  what  must  have  been 
his  idea  of  the  big  words  he  does  not  use.  A  careful 
collation  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Anatomy  with 
the  last  published  in  the  author's  lifetime  not  only 
shows  a  great  number  of  additions  and  alterations, 
but  proves  conclusively  that  these  changes  were 
made,  in  many  cases,  with  a  view  to  style  and  to 
style  only.  Take  a  single  instance.  In  the  first 
edition  Burton  wrote:  "If  it  be  so  that  the  earth  is 
a  moon,  then  are  we  all  lunatic  within."  Later  he 
amplified  this  as  follows,  with  obvious  gain  in  the 
beauty  of  the  phrase:  "If  it  be  so  that  the  earth  is 
a  moon,  then  we  are  also  giddy,  vertiginous  and 
lunatic  within  this  sublunary  maze."  Amended  I 
think,  but  oh,  for  the  "big  words,  fustian  phrases, 
jingling  terms" ! 

Yes,  Burton  was  a  master  of  style.     He  could 
bend  language  to  his  ends  and  do  as  he  willed  with 


132         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

it.  If  he  is  often  rough,  harsh,  wanton  in  expression, 
it  is  simply  because,  like  Donne,  he  chose  to  be  so. 
Does  he  wish  to  tell  a  plain  story"?  Who  can  do 
it  more  lightly,  simply,  briefly?  "An  ass  and  a 
mule  went  laden  over  a  brook,  the  one  with  salt,  the 
other  with  wool ;  the  mule's  pack  was  wet  by  chance ; 
the  salt  melted,  his  burden  the  lighter ;  and  he  there- 
by much  eased.  He  told  the  ass,  who,  thinking  to 
speed  as  well,  wet  his  pack  likewise  at  the  next 
water;  but  it  was  much  the  heavier,  he  quite  tired." 

Does  he  wish  to  paint  the  foul  and  horrible?  I 
know  of  nothing  in  Swift  or  Zola  more  replete  with 
the  luxury  of  hideousness  than  the  unquotable  de- 
scription of  the  defects  which  infatuated  love  will 
overlook, — a  description  which  Keats  tells  a  corre- 
spondent he  would  give  his  favourite  leg  to  have  writ- 
ten. Here,  as  in  so  many  passages  I  have  quoted, 
Burton  piles  up  epithet  after  epithet,  till  it  seems 
as  if  the  dictionary  would  be  exhausted, — a  trick 
which,  by  the  bye,  he  may  have  caught  from  Rabe- 
lais, and  which  would  become  very  monotonous,  if  it 
were  not  applied  with  such  wonderful  variety  and 
fertility. 

Then,  at  his  will,  the  magician  can  turn  with  ease 
from  the  bitter  to  the  sweet.  When  he  touches  love 
or  beauty,  all  his  ruggedness  is  gone.  His  words  be- 
come full  of  grace,  of  suave,  vague  richness,  of  deli- 
cacy, of  mystery,  as  in  the  phrase  which  Southey 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  133 

quotes  in  "The  Doctor" :  "For  peregrination  charms 
our  senses  with  such  unspeakable  and  sweet  variety 
that  some  count  him  unhappy  that  never  travelled,  a 
kind  of  prisoner,  and  pity  his  case,  that  from  his 
cradle  to  his  old  age  beholds  the  same  still:  still, 
still  the  same,  the  same."  Or,  to  take  a  more  elabo- 
rate picture,  see  this,  which  might  be  a  Tintoretto  or 
a  Spenser:  "Witty  Lucian,  in  that  pathetical  love- 
passage  or  pleasant  description  of  Jupiter's  stealing 
of  Europa  and  swimming  from  Phoenicia  to  Crete, 
makes  the  sea  calm,  the  winds  hush,  Neptune  and 
Amphitrite  riding  in  their  chariot  to  break  the  waves 
before  them,  the  Tritons  dancing  round  about  with 
every  one  a  torch;  the  sea-nymphs,  half-naked,  keep- 
ing time  on  dolphins'  backs  and  singing  Hymenseus ; 
Cupid  nimbly  tripping  on  the  top  of  the  waters ;  and 
Venus  herself  coming  after  in  a  shell,  strewing  roses 
and  flowers  on  their  heads." 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  on  Burton's  style  because 
it  is  absolutely  characteristic,  and  because  it  proves 
by  its  eminent  artistic  qualities  that  he  was  not 
simply  a  compiler  and  quoter,  but  a  thinking  and 
feeling  man,  a  strong,  shrewd,  passionate  tempera- 
ment, gazing  with  intense  interest  out  of  his  scholas- 
tic windows  at  the  strange  and  moving  spectacle  of 
life.  In  his  fulness  and  abundance  he,  more  than 
any  other  English  author,  recalls  Montaigne,  whom 
he  occasionally  quotes :  he  has  less  fluidity,  more  con- 


134         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ventional  prejudice,  but  also  more  sincerity,  more 
robust  moral  force.  Again,  he  in  a  certain  sense  re- 
sembles a  greater  than  Montaigne,  his  own  greatest 
contemporary,  Shakespeare,  whom  he  also  quotes 
enough  to  show  that  he  knew  and  loved  his  writings, 
at  any  rate,  if  not  himself.  Shakespeare's  work  is 
like  a  glorious  piece  of  tapestry,  a  world  of  rich 
and  splendid  hues,  woven  into  a  thousand  shapes  of 
curious  life.  Burton's  is  like  the  reverse  side  of  the 
same;  all  the  bewildering  wealth  of  colour,  but 
rough,  crude,  misshapen,  undigested. 

One  of  the  characteristic  oddities  of  Burton's  style 
is  his  perpetual  use  of  the  phrase  etc.  When  his 
quick  and  fluent  pen  has  heaped  together  all  the 
nouns  or  adjectives  in  heaven,  and  in  earth,  and  in 
the  waters  under  the  earth,  he  completes  the  picture 
with  the  vast  vague  gesture  of  an  etc.  Take  an 
often-quoted  passage  in  the  introduction,  in  which 
he  describes  his  own  life  as  an  observer  and  con- 
templator:  "now  comes  tidings  of  weddings,  mask- 
ings,  mummeries,  entertainments,  jubilees,  embassies, 
tilts  and  tournaments,  trophies,  triumphs,  revels, 
sports,  plays;  then  again,  as  in  a  new-shifted  scene, 
treasons,  cheating  tricks,  robberies,  enormous  vil- 
lainies in  all  kinds,  funerals,  burials,  death  of  princes, 
new  discoveries,  expeditions,  now  comical,  then 
tragical  matters;  to-day  we  hear  of  new  lords  and 
officers  created,  to-morrow  of  some  great  men  de- 


AN  ODD  SORT  OF  POPULAR  BOOK  135 

posed,  and  again  of  fresh  honours  conferred;  one  is 
let  loose,  another  imprisoned;  one  purchaseth,  an- 
other breaketh ;  he  thrives,  his  neighbour  turns  bank- 
rupt ;  now  plenty,  then  again  dearth  and  famine ;  one 
runs,  another  rides,  wrangles,  laughs,  weeps,  etc." 

So  we  may  sum  up  "The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy" 
in  an  etc.  The  general  tone  of  the  book,  with  its 
infinite  multiplicity,  reminds  one  of  nothing  more 
than  of  the  quaint  blending  of  mirth,  mystery,  and 
spiritual  awe,  so  deliciously  expressed  in  Stevenson's 
baby  couplet, — 

"The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things, 
I'm  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings." 

Only  Burton  would  have  laid  a  mischievous  and 
melancholy  emphasis  on  "should." 

1902 


VI 
ALEXANDER  DUMAS 


VI 


ALEXANDER    DUMAS 

MR.  DAVIDSON,  whose  excellent  volume 
on  Dumas  must  be  the  foundation  of  any 
careful  study  of  the  subject,  dismisses  his 
author  with  the  remark:  "Except  for  increasing  the 
already  ample  means  of  relaxation,  he  did  nothing  to 
benefit  humanity  at  large."  Is  not  this  a  rather  grudg- 
ing epitaph  for  the  creator  of  "Monte  Cristo6?" 
Are  the  means  of  relaxation  so  ample  that  we  can 
afford  to  treat  "La  Tour  de  Nesle"  and  "La  Reine 
Margot"  as  alms  for  oblivion*?  Would  Stevenson 
have  read  "Le  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne"  six  times, 
would  you  or  I  have  read  "Les  Trois  Mousquetaires" 
more  times  than  we  can  count,  if  other  relaxation  of 
an  equally  delightful  order  were  indeed  so  easily  ob- 
tainable*? In  spite  of  the  flood  of  historical  novels 
and  all  other  kinds  of  novels  that  overwhelmed  the 
nineteenth  century,  story-tellers  like  Dumas  are  not 
born  every  day,  nor  yet  every  other  day. 

For  he  was  a  story-teller  by  nature,  one  who  could 
make  a  story  of  anything,  one  who  did  make  a  story 
of  everything,  for  the  joy  of  his  own  childlike  imagi- 

139 


140         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

nation.  "I  am  not  like  other  people.  Everything 
interests  me."  The  round  oath  of  a  man,  the  smile 
of  a  woman,  a  dog  asleep  in  the  sun,  a  bird  singing 
in  a  bush,  even  a  feather  floating  in  the  breeze,  was 
enough.  Fancy  seized  it  and  wove  an  airy,  sun- 
bright  web  about  it,  glittering  with  wit,  touched  with 
just  a  hint  of  pathos;  and  as  we  read,  we  forget  the 
slightness  of  the  substance  in  the  grace  and  delicacy 
of  the  texture. 

It  is  an  odd  thing,  this  national  French  gift  of 
story- telling,  of  seeking  by  instinct  the  group-effect, 
as  it  were,  of  a  set  of  characters,  their  composite  re- 
lations to  one  another  and  the  development  of  these 
relations  in  dramatic  climax.  English  writers,  from 
Chaucer  down,  dwell  by  preference  on  the  individual 
character,  force  it  only  with  labour  and  difficulty 
into  the  general  framework,  from  which  it  constantly 
escapes  in  delightful  but  wholly  undramatic  human 
eccentricity.  To  the  French  habit  of  mind,  such  in- 
dividuality is  excrescent  and  distasteful.  Let  the 
characters  develop  as  fully  and  freely  as  the  action 
requires,  no  more.  They  are  there  for  the  action, 
not  the  action  for  them.  Hence,  as  the  English  de- 
fect is  dull  diffusion  and  a  chaos  of  disorder,  so  the 
French  is  loss  of  human  truth  in  a  mad  eagerness  for 
forcible  situations,  that  is  to  say,  melodrama. 

Even  in  Hugo,  in  Balzac,  in  Flaubert,  in  Zola, 
one  has  an  uneasy  feeling  that  melodrama  is  not  too 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  141 

far  away.  In  Dumas  it  is  frankly  present  always. 
The  situation — something  that  shall  tear  the  nerves, 
make  the  heart  leap  and  the  breath  stop — for  Dumas 
there  lies  the  true  art  of  dramatist  and  novelist.  And 
what  situations !  No  one  ever  had  more  than  he  the 
two  great  dramatic  gifts,  which  perhaps  are  only  one, 
the  gift  of  preparation  and  the  gift  of  climax.  "Of 
all  denouements,  past,  present,  and  I  will  say  even  to 
come,"  writes  Sarcey,  "that  of  'Antony'  is  the  most 
brilliant,  the  most  startling,  the  most  logical,  the 
most  rapid ;  a  stroke  of  genius."  "Henri  III,"  "Rich- 
ard Darlington,"  "La  Tour  de  Nesle"  are  full  of  ef- 
fects scarcely  inferior.  If  one  thinks  first  of  the 
plays,  it  is  only  because  in  them  the  action  is  more 
concentrated  than  in  the  novels.  But  in  novel  after 
novel  also,  there  is  the  same  sure  instinct  of  arrange- 
ment, the  same  masterly  hand,  masterly  for  obtaining 
the  sort  of  effect  which  the  author  has  chiefly  in  view. 
And  perhaps  the  melodrama  is  not  quite  all.  The 
creatures  are  not  always  mere  puppets,  wire-pulled, 
stirring  the  pulse  when  they  clash  together,  then  for- 
gotten. We  hate  them  sometimes,  sometimes  love 
them,  sometimes  even  remember  them.  Marguerite 
and  Buridan  are  not  wholly  unreal  in  their  wild  pas- 
sion. The  scene  of  reconciliation  between  the  Mus- 
keteers in  the  Place  Royale  has  something  deeper 
than  mere  effect.  And  these  are  only  two  among 
many.  Under  all  his  gift  of  technique,  his  love  of 


142         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

startling  and  amazing,  the  man  was  not  without  an 
eye,  a  grip  on  life,  above  all,  a  heart  that  beat  widely, 
with  many  sorrows  and  many  joys. 

Then  the  style  is  the  style  of  melodrama,  but  it 
is  also  far  more.  No  one  knew  better  how  and  when 
to  let  loose  sharp,  stinging,  burning  shafts  of  phrase, 
like  the  final  speech  of  Antony,  "Elle  m'a  resiste; 
je  Vai  assassmee," — shafts  which  flew  over  the  foot- 
lights straight  to  the  heart  of  every  auditor.  But 
these  effects  would  be  nothing  without  the  varied 
movement  of  narration,  the  ease,  the  lightness,  the 
grace, — above  all,  the  perpetual  wit,  the  play  of 
delicate  irony,  which  saves  sentiment  from  being  sen- 
timental and  erudition  from  being  dull. 

Dumas's  style  has  been  much  abused,  and  in  some 
ways  deserves  it.  Mr.  Saintsbury  considers  that  the 
plays  have  "but  little  value  as  literature  properly  so- 
called,"  and  that  "the  style  of  the  novels  is  not  more 
remarkable  as  such  than  that  of  the  dramas."  But 
how  far  more  discerning  and  sympathetic  is  Steven- 
son's characterisation  of  it:  "Light  as  a  whipped 
trifle,  strong  as  silk;  wordy  like  a  village  tale;  pat 
like  a  general's  despatch ;  with  every  fault,  yet  never 
tedious;  with  no  merit,  yet  inimitably  right."  As 
for  dialogue, — that  subtlest  test  of  the  novelist's 
genius — which  neither  Balzac,  nor  Flaubert,  nor 
Zola  could  manage  with  flexibility  or  ease,  Dumas 
may  have  used  it  to  excess,  but  who  has  ever  carried 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  143 

it  to  greater  perfection*?  In  M.  Lemaitre's  excellent, 
if  somewhat  cynical,  phrase,  Dumas' s  dialogue  has 
"the  wonderful  quality  of  stringing  out  the  narra- 
tive to  the  crack  of  doom  and  at  the  same  time  mak- 
ing it  appear  to  move  with  headlong  rapidity."  But 
let  it  string  out,  so  it  moves.  And  surely  Dumas's 
conversations  do  move,  as  no  others  ever  have. 

In  the  hurry  of  modern  reading,  few  people  have 
time  to  get  at  Dumas  in  any  but  his  best-known 
works.  Yet  to  form  a  complete  idea  of  his  powers, 
one  must  take  a  much  wider  survey.  All  periods,  all 
nations,  all  regions  of  the  earth,  came  at  one  time  or 
another  under  his  pen.  Of  course  this  means  an  in- 
evitable superficiality  and  inaccuracy.  But  one  over- 
looks these  defects,  is  hardly  aware  of  them,  in  the 
ease,  the  spirit,  the  unfailing  humanness  of  the  nar- 
rative. Take  a  minor  story  like  "L'Isle  de  Feu," 
dealing  with  the  Dutch  in  Java  and  with  the  habits 
and  superstitions  of  the  natives,  snake-charming, 
spirit-haunting,  etc.  Everywhere  there  is  movement, 
life,  character,  the  wit  of  the  "Impressions  de  Voy- 
age," the  passion  of  "La  Reine  Margot."  And  if 
Dumas  does  not  quite  anticipate  the  seductive  melan- 
choly of  Loti's  tropics,  he  gives  hints  of  it  which  are 
really  wonderful  for  a  man  who  had  never  been 
south  of  latitude  thirty. 

Perhaps,  outside  of  the  historical  novels,  we  may 
select  four  very  different  books  as  most  typical  of 


144         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Dumas's  great  variety  of  production.  First,  in  "Con- 
science 1'Innocent,"  we  have  a  simple  idyllic  subject, 
recalling  George  Sands'  country  stories :  peasant  life, 
rural  scenes,  sweet  pictures  of  Dumas's  own  village 
home  at  Villers-Cotterets,  which  he  introduced  into 
so  many  of  his  writings.  Second,  in  the  immense 
canvas  of  "Salvator,"  too  little  appreciated,  we  have 
a  picture  of  contemporary  conditions,  the  Paris  of 
Sue  and  Hugo,  treated  with  a  vividness  far  beyond 
Sue  and  a  dramatic  power  which  Hugo  never  could 
command.  Third,  comes  the  incomplete  "Isaac  La- 
quedem,"  the  vast  Odyssey  of  the  Wandering  Jew, 
in  which  the  author  planned  to  develop  epically  the 
whole  history  of  the  world,  though  the  censorship  al- 
lowed him  to  get  no  further  than  the  small  Biblical 
portion  of  it.  Few  of  Dumas's  books  illustrate  bet- 
ter the  really  soaring  sweep  of  his  imagination,  and 
not  many  have  a  larger  share  of  his  esprit.  Lastly, 
there  is  "Monte  Cristo,"  which,  on  the  whole,  re- 
mains, doubtless,  the  best  example  of  what  Dumas 
could  do  without  history  to  support  him.  "Pure 
melodrama,"  some  will  say;  in  a  sense,  truly.  Yet, 
as  compared  with  the  melodrama  of,  for  instance, 
"Armadale"  and  "The  Woman  in  White,"  there  is 
a  certain  largeness,  a  sombre  grandeur,  about  the 
vengeance  of  Dantes  which  goes  almost  far  enough 
to  lift  the  book  out  of  the  realm  of  melodrama,  and 
into  that  of  tragedy.  And  then  there  is  the  wit! 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  145 

But  it  is  on  historical  romance,  whether  in  drama 
or  fiction,  that  Dumas's  popularity  must  chiefly  rest. 
He  himself  felt  it  would  be  so,  hoped  it  would  be  so; 
and  his  numerous  references  to  the  matter,  if  amus- 
ing, are  also  extremely  interesting.  He  speaks  of  his 
series  of  historical  novels  as  "immense  pictures  we 
have  undertaken  to  unroll  before  the  eyes  of  our 
readers,  in  which,  if  our  genius  equalled  our  good  will, 
we  would  introduce  all  classes  of  men  from  the  beg- 
gar to  the  king,  from  Caliban  to  Ariel."  And  again : 
"Balzac  has  written  a  great  work  entitled  The  Hu- 
man Comedy.'  Our  work,  begun  at  the  same  time, 
may  be  entitled  'The  Drama  of  France.'  "  He  hopes 
that  his  labours  will  be  profitable  as  well  as  amus- 
ing: "We  intentionally  say  'instruct'  first,  for 
amusement  with  us  is  only  a  mask  for  instruction. 
.  .  .  Concerning  the  last  five  centuries  and  a  half  we 
have  taught  France  more  history  than  any  historian." 
And  when  some  one  gently  insinuates  that  from  a 
purely  historical  point  of  view  his  work  cannot  stand 
with  the  highest,  he  replies  with  his  usual  charming 
humour,  "It  is  the  unreadable  histories  that  make  a 
stir;  they  are  like  dinners  you  can't  digest;  digestible 
dinners  give  you  no  cause  to  thinic  about  them  on  the 
next  day." 

After  all,  humour  apart,  we  must  recognise  the  jus- 
tice of  Dumas's  claim;  and  the  enduring  life  and 
perpetual  revival  of  the  historical  novel  go  far  to 


146         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

support  it.  Mankind  in  general  do  love  to  hear 
about  Henry  IV,  Richelieu,  and  the  Stuarts,  about 
Washington  and  Lincoln  and  Napoleon,  and  in  hear- 
ing they  do  learn,  even  against  their  will.  Pedants 
shake  their  heads.  This  birth-date  is  incorrect.  That 
victory  was  not  a  victory  at  all.  When  Dr.  Dryas- 
dust has  given  the  slow  labour  of  a  lifetime  to  dis- 
entangling fact  from  fiction,  how  wicked  to  mislead 
the  ignorant  by  wantonly  developing  fiction  out  of 
fact!  As  if  Dr.  Dryasdust  really  knew  fact  from 
fiction !  As  if  the  higher  spiritual  facts  were  not  al- 
together beyond  his  ken  and  his  researches!  As  if 
any  two  pedants  agreed!  Take  the  central  fact  of 
history,  the  point  from  which  everything  of  impor- 
tance and  interest  emanates, — human  character,  the 
human  soul.  What  pedant  can  reach  it,  can  analyse 
it  with  his  finest  microscope*?  Napoleon  was  born 
on  such  a  day,  died  on  such  a  day,  this  he  did,  that 
he  did.  But  was  he  in  any  sense  patriotic,  an  ideal- 
ist, a  lover  of  France?  Was  he  a  suspicious,  jealous, 
lascivious  tyrant1?  Was  he  sometimes  one,  sometimes 
the  other?  State  documents  and  gossiping  memoirs 
give  no  final  answer  to  these  questions,  only  hints  and 
cloudy  indications  bearing  upon  them,  from  which 
the  genius  of  the  historian  must  sketch  a  figure  for 
itself.  Therefore,  as  many  historians,  so  many  Na- 
poleons, and  in  the  end  my  Napoleon,  your  Napo- 
leon. If  so,  why  not  Alexander  Dumas's  Napoleon, 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  147 

said  Dumas,  having  perhaps  as  much  faculty  of  im- 
aginative divination  as  you  or  I,  or  even  as  several 
historians  whom  we  will  not  mention. 

In  fact,  Dumas  has  undoubtedly  taught  the  his- 
tory of  France  to  thousands  who  would  otherwise 
have  had  little  concern  with  it.  And  his  characters 
live.  Catherine  de'  Medici  and  her  sons,  Louis  XIV, 
Mazarin,  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  Marie  Antoinette — 
we  know  them  as  we  know  people  whom  we  meet 
every  day:  in  one  sense,  perhaps  not  at  all;  but  in 
another  sense,  intimately.  Great  actions  call  for  a 
large  background,  which  should  be  handled  with  the 
wide  sweep  of  the  scene-painter,  not  with  the  curious 
minuteness  of  the  artist  in  miniatures.  The  very 
abundance  of  these  characters,  the  vastness  of  the 
canvas,  help  the  reality,  and  in  this  matter  of  am- 
plitude Dumas  and  Scott  show  their  genius,  and  tri- 
umph over  the  petty  concentration  of  later  imitators. 
Nor  are  the  characters  wholly  or  mainly  of  Dumas's 
own  invention  less  vivid  than  those  historical;  for 
Dumas  learned  from  Scott  the  cardinal  secret  of 
historical  romance,  which  Shakespeare  did  not  grasp, 
that  the  action  of  the  story  should  turn,  not  on  real 
personages,  but  on  fictitious  heroes  and  heroines, 
whose  fortunes  can  be  moulded  freely  for  a  dramatic 
purpose.  Dumas  himself  says  somewhere  that  people 
complain  of  the  length  of  his  novels,  yet  that  the 
longest  have  been  the  most  popular  and  the  most  sue- 


148         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

cessful.  It  is  so.  We  can  wander  for  days  in  the 
vast  galleries  of  the  "Reine  Margot"  series,  charmed 
with  the  gallantry  of  La  Mole,  the  vivacity  of  Co- 
connas,  the  bravado  of  Bussy,  above  all,  the  inimi- 
table wit  and  shrewdness  of  Chicot,  who  surely  comes 
next  to  d'Artagnan  among  all  Dumas's  literary  chil- 
dren. And  d'Artagnan — what  a  broad  country  he 
inhabits!  How  lovely  to  lose  one's  self  there  in 
long  winter  evenings,  meeting  at  every  turn  a  saucy 
face  or  a  gay  gesture  or  a  keen  flash  of  sword  that 
makes  one  forget  the  passage  of  time.  "I  never  had 
a  care  that  a  half-hour's  reading  would  not  dissi- 
pate," said  Montesquieu.  Fortunate  man!  How 
few  of  us  resemble  him !  But  if  a  half-hour's  read- 
ing of  anything  would  work  such  a  miracle,  surely 
a  novel  of  Dumas  would  do  it. 

As  for  the  man  himself,  he  happily  created  such 
characters  as  d'Artagnan  and  Chicot  because  he  re- 
sembled them,  and  was  in  his  own  person  as  pictur- 
esque a  figure  as  any  that  talks  passion  in  his  plays, 
or  wit  in  the  endless  pages  of  his  novels.  I  do  not 
know  that  he  had  ever  read  Milton's  oracular  say- 
ing that  he  who  would  be  a  great  poet  should  make 
his  life  a  true  poem;  but,  in  any  case,  he  pointed  it 
aptly  by  showing  that  the  best  way  to  write  romantic 
novels  is  to  make  a  romantic  novel  of  your  own  ca- 
reer. Born  in  1802,  in  the  most  stirring  period  of 
French  history,  one-quarter  African  by  blood,  he 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  149 

worked  his  way  upward  from  bitter  poverty  and  in- 
significance to  sudden  glory  and  considerable  wealth. 
Ambitious  for  political  as  well  as  literary  success  he 
took  a  more  or  less  active  part  in  the  various  commo- 
tions of  the  second  quarter  of  the  century,  so  that  he 
was  able  to  say  of  himself  with  some  truth  and  im- 
mense satisfaction,  "I  have  touched  the  left  hand  of 
princes,  the  right  hand  of  artists  and  literary  celebri- 
ties, and  have  come  in  contact  with  all  phases  of 
life." 

A  great  traveller,  a  great  hunter,  he  had  innumer- 
able adventures  by  flood  and  field.  Quick  in  emo- 
tion and  quicker  in  speech,  he  made  friends  every- 
where and  some  enemies.  Peculiarly  sensitive  to 
the  charms  and  caresses  of  women,  he  had  no  end 
of  love-affairs,  all  more  or  less  discreditable. 
Thoughtless,  careless,  full  of  wit,  full  of  laughter, 
he  travelled  the  primrose  way,  plucking  kisses  like 
spring  blossoms,  wrapping  his  cloak  more  tightly 
round  him  when  he  ran  into  winter  storms  of  envy, 
jealousy,  and  mocking.  What  wealth  he  had  he 
squandered,  what  glory,  he  frittered  away.  And  as 
he  was  born  in  a  whirlwind  of  French  triumph,  so 
he  died,  in  1870,  in  a  wilder  whirlwind  of  French 
ruin  and  despair. 

The  man's  life  was,  indeed,  a  novel ;  and  in  writ- 
ing his  "Memoirs"  he  dressed  it  out  as  such,  height- 
ening, colouring,  enriching  the  golden  web  of  mem- 


150         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ory,  as  only  he  knew  how  to  do;  so  that  I  am  almost 
ready  to  call  these  same  memoirs  the  best  of  his 
works,  even  with  "Les  Trois  Mousquetaires"  and 
"La  Tour  de  Nesle"  in  fresh  remembrance.  Such 
variety  and  vivacity  of  anecdote,  such  vivid,  shifting 
portraiture  of  characters,  such  quick  reality  of  inci- 
dent, such  wit  always.  But  the  best  of  it,  unques- 
tionably, is  not  Talma,  nor  Dorval,  nor  Hugo,  nor 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  but  just  Alexander  Dumas.  It 
is  said  that  once,  when  a  friend  asked  him  how  he 
had  enjoyed  a  party,  Dumas  replied,  "I  should  have 
been  horribly  bored,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  myself." 
Readers  of  the  "Memoirs"  will  easily  understand  how 
other  society  might  have  seemed  dull  in  comparison. 

From  all  the  tangled  mass  of  anecdote  and  laugh- 
ter let  us  try  to  gather  one  or  two  definite  lines  of 
portraiture  for  the  better  understanding  of  this  singu- 
lar personage,  "one  of  the  forces  of  nature,"  as 
Michelet  called  him  in  a  phrase  which  Dumas  loved 
to  repeat. 

And  to  begin  with  the  beginning.  Did  the  creator 
of  Buridan  and  Chicot  have  a  religion,  did  he  trouble, 
himself  with  abstract  ideas'?  You  smile;  and  cer- 
tainly he  did  not  trouble  his  readers  very  much  with 
these  things.  Yet  in  his  own  opinion  he  was  a 
thinker,  and  a  rather  deep  one.  Read,  in  the  pref- 
ace to  "Caligula,"  how  the  public  received  with  awe 
"this  rushing  torrent  of  thought,  which  appeared  to 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  151 

it  perhaps  new  and  daring,  but  solemn  and  chaste; 
and  then  withdrew,  with  bowed  head,  like  a  man 
who  has  at  last  found  the  solution  of  a  problem 
which  has  vexed  him  during  many  sleepless  nights." 
In  his  turbulent  youth  the  author  of  "Antony" 
was  a  disbeliever,  as  became  a  brother  of  Byron  and 
Musset;  "there  are  moments  when  I  would  give  thee 
up  my  soul,  if  I  believed  I  had  one."  But  in  later 
years  he  settled  down  to  the  soberer  view  which  ap- 
pears in  the  dedication  of  "La  Conscience"  to  Hugo : 
"in  testimony  of  a  friendship  which  has  survived 
exile  and  will,  I  hope,  survive  death.  I  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul."  And  again  and  again 
he  testified  to  the  power  of  his  early  religious  train- 
ing, which  "left  upon  all  my  beliefs,  upon  all  my 
opinions,  so  profound  an  impression  that  even  to- 
day I  cannot  enter  a  church  without  taking  the  holy 
water,  cannot  pass  a  crucifix  without  making  the 
sign  of  the  cross."  Nor  do  these  emotions  spring 
from  mere  religiosity,  but  from  an  astonishingly,  not 
to  say  crudely,  definite  form  of  belief:  "I  know 
not  what  my  merit  has  been,  whether  in  this  world 
or  in  the  other  worlds  I  may  have  inhabited  before ; 
but  God  has  shown  me  especial  favours  and  in  all 
the  critical  situations  in  which  I  have  found  myself, 
he  has  come  visibly  to  my  assistance.  Therefore, 
O  God,  I  confess  thy  name  openly  and  humbly  before 
all  sceptics  and  before  all  believers."  What  revival- 


152         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ist  of  to-day  could  speak  with  more  fervour?  If 
only  one  did  not  suspect  a  bit  of  the  irony  that 
shows  more  clearly  in  the  conversation  with  his  old 
teacher,  whose  prayers  Dumas  had  requested.  "My 
prayers'?"  said  the  abbe.  "You  don't  believe  in 
them." — "No,  I  don't  always  believe  in  them.  That 
is  very  true;  but  don't  worry:  when  I  need  them  I 
will  believe  in  them."  On  the  strength  of  that  re- 
mark we  might  almost  call  Dumas  the  inventor' of 
pragmatism  before  Professor  James. 

And  the  irony  is  rooted  in  a  truth  of  character. 
Dumas  was  a  man  of  this  world.  He  might  dream 
of  the  other  at  odd  moments,  in  vague  curiosity ;  but 
by  temperament  he  was  a  frank  pagan,  an  eater,  a 
laugher,  a  lover,  a  fighter,  gorgeously  in  words,  not 
wholly  ineffectively  in  deeds,  even  after  we  have 
made  the  necessary  discount  from  his  own  version 
of  his  exploits.  He  had  inherited  something  of  his 
father's  magnificent  physique  and  something  of  his 
father's  courage.  When  he  tells  us  that  "since  I 
arrived  at  manhood,  whenever  danger  has  presented 
itself,  by  night  or  by  day,  I  have  always  walked 
straight  up  to  danger,"  we  believe  him — with  the  dis- 
count aforesaid;  and  we  believe  him  all  the  more,  be- 
cause like  every  brave  man,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
confess  fear.  "It  was  the  first  time  I  had  heard  the 
noise  of  grapeshot,  and  I  say  frankly  that  I  will  not 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  153 

believe  any  one  who  tells  me  that  he  heard  that  noise 
for  the  first  time  without  perturbation." 

In  truth,  the  religion,  the  courage,  the  fear — all,  and 
everything  else  in  the  man,  were  a  matter  of  im- 
pulse, of  immediate  emotion.  He  was  quite  aware 
of  this  himself.  When  he  proposed  his  Vendee  mis- 
sion to  Lafayette,  the  latter  said  to  him,  "Have 
you  reflected  on  what  this  means?" — "As  much  as  I 
am  capable  of  reflecting  about  anything:  I  am  a 
man  of  instinct,  not  of  reflection."  The  extraordi- 
nary vanity  of  which  he  was  justly  accused,  of  which 
he  accuses  himself, — "everybody  knows  the  vain  side 
of  my  character," — was  only  one  phase  of  this  nat- 
ural impulsiveness.  He  spoke  out  what  others  think 
— and  keep  to  themselves.  Mr.  Davidson  has  ad- 
mirably noted  that  in  Dumas's  case  vanity  was  per- 
fectly compatible  with  humility.  He  had  no  ab- 
surdly exaggerated  idea  of  his  own  powers.  But  he 
liked  to  talk  about  himself,  to  be  conspicuous,  to 
be  the  central  figure  on  every  stage.  The  African 
blood,  of  which  he  was  not  ashamed — "I  am  a  mu- 
latto," he  says  repeatedly, — told  in  him;  the  negro 
childlikeness.  He  was  a  child  always,  above  all 
childlike  in  this  matter  of  vanity.  Readers  of  "Tom 
Sawyer"  will  remember  that  that  delightful  youth, 
on  hearing  the  beatific  vision  of  Isaiah,  which  pic- 
tures such  a  varied  menagerie  dwelling  in  harmony, 
with  a  little  child  to  lead  them,  had  one  absorbing 


154         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

wish :  that  he  might  be  that  child.  Dumas  was  pre- 
cisely like  Tom  Sawyer;  witness  this  delightful 
prayer  of  his  youth :  "Make  me  great  and  glorious, 
O  Lord,  that  I  may  come  nearer  unto  thee.  And 
the  more  glorious  thou  makest  me,  the  more  humbly 
will  I  confess  thy  name,  thy  majesty,  thy  splendour." 

The  same  childlike  temper,  the  fresh,  animal  in- 
stincts of  a  great  boy,  explain,  if  they  do  not  excuse, 
the  disorders  of  Dumas's  life. 

In  this  connection  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  do  more 
than  to  point  out  his  hopeless  aberration  from  all 
Anglo-Saxon  standards  of  propriety  and  decency. 
It  would  be  easy  to  lash  such  aberration,  but  it  is 
perhaps  better  to  consider  it  in  connection  with  the 
man's  character  as  a  whole,  and  to  remember  that 
his  life  was  as  far  as  possible  from  being  a  generally 
idle  or  dissipated  one.  He  never  smoked,  cherish- 
ing, in  fact,  a  grudge  against  tobacco,  which  he  re- 
garded as  an  enemy  to  true  sociability.  He  was 
moderate  in  eating  and  drinking.  Above  all,  he  was 
an  enormous  worker.  No  man  essentially  vicious,  no 
man  who  had  not  a  large  fund  of  temperance  and 
self-control,  could  have  produced  a  tithe  of  Dumas's 
legacy  to  posterity.  But  what  is  most  interesting  of 
all  in  this  matter  of  morals  is  Dumas's  entire  satis- 
faction with  himself.  I  doubt  if  any  other  human 
being  would  deliberately  have  ventured  on  a  state- 
ment so  remarkable  as  the  following:  "When  the 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  155 

hand  of  the  Lord  closes  the  two  horizons  of  my 
life,  letting  fall  the  veil  of  his  love  between  the 
nothingness  that  precedes  and  the  nothingness  that 
follows  the  life  of  man,  he  may  examine  the  inter- 
mediate space  with  his  most  rigorous  scrutiny,  he 
will  not  find  there  one  single  evil  thought  or  one 
action  for  which  I  feel  that  I  should  reproach  my-1 
self."  Comment  on  this  would  only  dim  its  splen- 
dour. Yet  people  say  that  the  "Memoirs"  of  Dumas 
lack  interest  as  human  documents !  He  was  an  atro- 
cious hypocrite,  then,  you  think?  Not  the  least  in 
the  world.  Simply  a  child,  always  a  child. 

A  child  in  money  matters  also.  No  one  could 
accuse  him  of  deliberate  financial  dishonesty;  but  to 
beg  and  borrow  and  never  to  pay  was  the  normal 
condition  of  things.  To  promise  right  and  left  when 
cash  was  needed,  then  to  find  one's  self  entirely  un- 
able to  fulfil  one's  promises, — still  childlike.  Only, 
persons  of  that  childlike  temper,  who  have  not  ge- 
nius, are  apt  to  end  badly.  And  then,  after  all,  to 
write  in  cold  blood  that  one  has  never  had  a  single 
action  to  reproach  one's  self  with !  I  trust  the  reader 
appreciates  that  passage  as  I  do. 

And  if  the  child  lacked  a  sense  of  money  property, 
how  should  he  be  likely  to  have  a  sense  of  property 
in  literature1?  Shakespeare,  Schiller,  dozens  of 
others,  had  had  ideas  which  were  useful.  Why  not 
use  them?  A  few  persons  had  previously  written 


156         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

on  the  history  of  France.  Distinguished  historical 
characters  had  left  memoirs  describing  their  own 
achievements.  It  would  have  been  almost  disres- 
pectful to  neglect  the  valuable  material  thus  af-, 
forded.  Let  us  quote  the  histories  and  borrow  from 
the  memoirs.  As  for  mentioning  any  little  indebted- 
ness, life  is  not  long  enough  for  that.  We  make  bold 
to  think  that  what  we  invent  is  quite  as  good  as 
what  we  take  from  others.  So  it  is — far  better.  A 
careful  comparison  of  "Les  Trois  Mousquetaires" 
with  the  original  d'Artagnan  "Memoirs"  increases 
rather  than  diminishes  one's  admiration  for  the  au- 
thor of  the  novel. 

But  it  will  be  said,  even  after  borrowing  his  ma- 
terial, Dumas  could  not  write  this  same  novel  with- 
out the  assistance  of  a  certain  Maquet.  Again  the 
same  childlike  looseness  in  the  sense  of  property. 
Could  a  genius  be  expected  to  write  three  hundred1 
volumes  without  helpers  for  the  rough  work"?  He 
must  have  hodmen  to  fetch  bricks  and  mortar.  And 
perhaps  the  builder,  hurried  and  overdriven,  may  set 
the  hodmen  to  lay  a  bit  of  wall  here  and  there,  may 
come  to  leave  altogether  too  much  to  hodmen  so 
that  the  work  suffers  for  it.  What  matter4?  Had 
ever  any  Maquet  or  Gaillardet  or  Meurice,  writing 

1  Perhaps  it  would  be  well  to  explain  the  different  numerical 
estimates  of  Dumas's  works.  As  now  published  in  the  Levy  collec- 
tion they  fill  about  three  hundred  volumes,  but  in  their  original 
form  they  ran  to  twelve  hundred,  more  or  less. 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  157 

by  himself,  the  Dumas  touch?  As  Mr.  Lang  justly 
points  out,  no  collaborator  has  been  suggested  for 
the  "Memoirs"  and  I  have  already  said  that  the  "Me- 
moirs" belong,  in  many  respects,  to  Dumas's  best, 
most  characteristic  work. 

Then,  a  child  is  as  ready  to  give  as  to  take.  So 
was  Dumas.  In  money  matters  it  goes  without  say- 
ing. He  was  always  ready  to  give,  to  give  to  every- 
body everything  he  had,  and  even  everything  he  had 
not  and  some  one  else  had.  "Nature  had  already 
put  in  my  heart,"  he  says  of  his  childhood,  "that 
fountain  of  general  kindliness  through  which  flows 
away  and  will  flow  away,  everything  I  had,  every- 
thing I  have,  and  everything  I  ever  shall  have." 
But  it  was  not  only  money,  it  was  time  and  thought, 
labour  and  many  steps.  This  same  fountain  of  gen- 
eral kindliness  was  always  at  the  service  even  of 
strangers.  For  instance,  Dumas  himself  tells  us 
that,  happening  once  to  be  in  a  seaport  town,  he 
found  a  young  couple  just  sailing  for  the  islands  and 
very  desolate.  He  set  himself  to  cheer  them  up, 
and  his  efforts  were  so  well  received  that  he  could 
not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  leave  them,  though  pressing 
business  called  him  away.  He  went  on  board  ship 
with  them,  and  only  returned  on  the  pilot  boat,  in 
the  midst  of  a  gale  and  at  the  peril  of  his  life,  so 
says  the  story.  Even  in  the  matter  of  literary  col- 
laboration, Mr.  Davidson  justly  points  out  that 


158         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Dumas  gave  as  well  as  took,  and  that  the  list  of 
his  debtors  is  longer  than  that  of  his  creditors. 

And  in  the  highest  generosity,  that  of  sympathy 
and  appreciation  for  fellow-workers,  the  absence  of 
envy  and  meanness  in  rivalry,  Dumas  is  nobly  abun- 
dant. He  tells  us  so  himself,  not  having  the  habit 
of  concealing  his  virtues:  "Having  arrived  at  the 
summit  which  every  man  finds  in  the  middle  of 
life's  journey,  I  ask  nothing,  I  desire  nothing,  I 
envy  nothing,  I  have  many  friendships  and  not  one 
single  hatred."  More  reliable  evidence  lies  in  the 
general  tone  of  enthusiasm  and  admiration  with 
which  he  speaks  of  all  his  contemporaries.  Musset 
avoided  him,  Balzac  insulted  him;  yet  he  refers  to 
both  with  hearty  praise  very  different  from  the 
damning  commendations  of  the  envious  Sainte- 
Beuve.  Lamartine  and  Hugo  he  eulogises  with  lav- 
ish freedom,  not  only  in  the  often-quoted  remark, 
"Hugo  is  a  thinker,  Lamartine  a  dreamer,  and  I  am 
a  populariser," — a  remark  more  generous  than  dis- 
criminating,— but  in  innumerable  passages  which 
leave  no  possible  doubt  of  his  humility  and  sincerity. 
"Style  was  what  I  lacked  above  everything  else. 
If  you  had  asked  me  for  ten  years  of  my  life,  prom- 
ising in  exchange  that  one  day  I  should  attain  the 
expression  of  Hugo's  'Marion  Delorme,'  I  should 
not  have  hesitated,  I  should  have  given  them  in- 
stantly." 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  159 

These  things  make  Dumas  attractive,  lovable  even, 
as  few  French  writers  are  lovable.  With  all  his 
faults  he  has  something  of  the  personal  charm  of 
Scott.  Only  something,  however;  for  Scott,  no  whit 
less  generous,  less  kindly,  had  the  sanity,  the  stabil- 
ity, the  moral  character,  why  avoid  the  word*?  which 
Dumas  had  not.  And  in  comparing  their  works — 
a  comparison  which  suggests  itself  almost  inevitably ; 
"Scott,  the  grandfather  of  us  all,"  said  Dumas  him- 
self— this  difference  of  morals  strikes  us  even  more 
than  the  important  differences  of  style  and  handling 
of  character.  It  is  the  immortal  merit  of  Scott  that 
he  wrote  novels  of  love  and  adventure  as  manly,  as 
virile,  as  heart  can  wish,  yet  absolutely  pure. 

Now,  Dumas  has  the  grave  disadvantage  of  not 
knowing  what  morals — sexual  morals — are.  Listen 
to  him:  "Of  the  six  hundred  volumes  (1848)  that 
I  have  written,  there  are  not  four  which  the  hand 
of  the  most  scrupulous  mother  need  conceal  from  her 
daughter."  The  reader  who  knows  Dumas  only  in 
"Les  Trois  Mousquetaires"  will  wonder  by  what 
fortunate  chance  he  has  happened  on  two  volumes 
out  of  those  "not  four."  But  he  may  reassure  him- 
self. There  are  others  of  the  six  hundred  which,  to 
use  the  modern  French  perversion,  more  effective 
untranslated,  the  daughter  will  not  recommend  to 
her  mother.  The  truth  is,  Dumas's  innocence  is 
worse  than,  say,  Maupassant's,  sophistication.  To 


160         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

the  author  of  "La  Reine  Margot"  love,  so  called, 
is  all,  the  excuse,  the  justification,  for  everything. 
Marriage — ca  n'existe  pas;  Dumas  knew  all  about 
it.  He  was  married  himself  for  a  few  months — 
at  the  king's  urgent  suggestion.  Then  he  recom- 
mended the  lady  to  the  ambassador  at  Florence 
with  a  most  polite  note,  and  she  disappeared  from 
his  too  flowery  career.  Therefore,  Dumas  begins 
his  love-stories  where  Scott's  end,  and  the  delicate 
refinement,  the  pure  womanly  freedom  of  Jeannie 
Deans  and  Diana  Vernon,  is  missing  in  the  French- 
man's young  ladies,  who  all  either  wish  to  be  in  a 
nunnery  or  ought  to  be. 

The  comparison  with  Scott  suggests  another  with 
a  greater  than  Scott;  and  like  Scott,  Dumas  did  not 
object  to  being  compared  with  Shakespeare,  who, 
by  the  way,  has  never  been  more  nobly  praised  in  a 
brief  sentence  than  in  Dumas's  saying  that  "he  was 
the  greatest  of  all  creators  after  God."  There  are 
striking  resemblances  between  the  two  writers. 
Shakespeare  began  in  poverty,  lived  among  theatri- 
cal people,  made  a  fortune  by  the  theatre.  Only, 
being  a  thrifty  English  bourgeois,  he  put  the  fortune 
into  his  own  pocket  instead  of  into  others'.  Shake- 
speare made  a  continuous  show  of  English  history 
and  bade  the  world  attend  it.  Shakespeare  begged, 
borrowed,  and  stole  from  dead  and  living,  so  that 
his  contemporaries  spoke  of  his 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  161 

"Tiger's  heart  wrapped  in  a  player's  hide." 

Doubtless  Maquet  and  Gaillardet  would  have  been 
willing  to  apply  the  phrase  to  their  celebrated  col- 
laborator. Thus  far  the  comparison  works  well 
enough.  But  Shakespeare  had  a  style  which  was 
beyond  even  that  of  "Marion  Delorme."  And  then, 
Shakespeare  felt  and  thought  as  a  man,  not  as  a 
child;  his  brain  and  his  heart  carried  the  weight  of 
the  world. 

What  will  be  the  future  of  Dumas'?  Will  his 
work  pass,  as  other  novels  of  romantic  adventure 
have  passed1?  Three  hundred  years  ago  idle  women 
— and  men — read  "Amadis  de  Gaul"  and  the  like, 
with  passion.  Says  the  waiting-woman  in  Massin- 
ger's  "Guardian": — 

In  all  the  books  of  Amadis  de  Gaul 

The  Palmerins  and   that  true   Spanish  story, 

The  Mirror  of  Knighthood,  which  I  have  read  often, 

Read  feelingly,  nay,  more,  I  do  believe  in't, 

My  lady  has  no  parallel. 

Where  are  Amadis  and  the  Palmerins  now4?  Two 
hundred  years  ago  the  same  persons  read  with  the 
same  passion  the  novels  of  Scudery  and  La  Calpre- 
nede.  "At  noon  home,"  says  Mr.  Pepys,  "where  I 
find  my  wife  troubled  still  at  my  checking  her  last 
night  in  the  coach  in  her  long  stories  out  of  'Grand 
Cyrus,'  which  she  would  tell,  though  nothing  to  the 


162         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

purpose,  nor  in  any  good  manner."  And  hear  Ma- 
dame de  Sevigne  on  "Cleopatre" :  "The  style  of  La 
Calprenede  is  abominable  in  a  thousand  places :  long 
sentences  in  the  full-blown,  romantic  fashion,  ill- 
chosen  words — I  am  perfectly  aware  of  it.  Yet  it 
holds  me  like  glue.  The  beauty  of  the  sentiments, 
the  violent  passions,  the  great  scale  on  which  every- 
thing takes  place  and  the  miraculous  success  of  the 
hero's  redoubtable  sword — it  carries  me  away,  as  if 
I  were  a  young  girl."  Le  succes  miraculeux  de  leur 
redoutable  epee;  if  one  tried  a  thousand  times,  could 
one  express  more  precisely  and  concisely  one's  feel- 
ings about  "Les  Trois  Mousquetaires"  *?  Yet  "Grand 
Cyrus"  is  dead,  and  "Cleopatre"  utterly  forgotten. 
No  bright-eyed  girl  asks  for  them  in  any  circulating 
library  any  more. 

Shall  d'Artagnan,  "dear  d'Artagnan,"  as  Steven- 
son justly  calls  him, — "I  do  not  say  that  there  is  no 
character  so  well-drawn  in  Shakespeare ;  I  do  say  that 
there  is  none  I  love  so  wholly," — d'Artagnan,  whose 
redoutable  epee  makes  such  delightful  havoc  among 
the  nameless  canaille,  whose  more  redoubtable  wit 
sets  kings  and  queens  and  dukes  and  cardinals  at 
odds  and  brings  them  to  peace  again, — shall  d'Ar- 
tagnan, too,  die  and  be  forgotten*?  The  thought  is 
enough  to  make  one  close  "Le  Vicomte  de  Brage- 
lonne"  in  the  middle  and  fall  a-dreaming  on  the 
flight  of  time  and  the  changes  of  the  world.  And 


ALEXANDER  DUMAS  163 

one  says  to  one's  self  that  one  would  like  to  live  two 
or  three  centuries  for  many  reasons,  but  not  least,  to 
read  stories  so  absorbing  that  they  will  make  one  in- 
different to  the  adventures  of  d'Artagnan. 

1908 


VII 


THE  NOVEL  TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS 
AGO 


VII 


THE  NOVEL  TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO 

NOT  quite  two  thousand,  since  we  hardly 
care  to  take  account  of  Xenophon's 
graceful  Sunday-school  book,  "The  Cyro- 
psedia,"  nor  of  the  Milesian  fables,  of  which  we 
know  little  except  that  they  were  not  Sunday-school 
books.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  an  officer  in  the  de- 
feated army  of  Crassus  had  a  valise  stuffed  with 
these  same  fables,  which  greatly  shocked  his  Parthian 
conqueror;  though  even  the  grave  biographer  points 
out  a  certain  inconsistency  in  the  Parthian's  morals, 
in  view  of  his  own  domestic  arrangements. 

Neither  are  we  much  concerned  with  the  dream- 
ing philosophy  of  Plato's  "Atlantis,"  nor  with  the 
various  travel-stories  that  have  come  to  us  in  frag- 
ments, nor  with  the  Alexander  legends  which  were 
so  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  "Satyricon" 
of  Petronius  is  more  a  series  of  sketches  of  manners 
than  a  unified  work;  and  even  Apuleius's  "Metamor- 
phoses," full  of  grace  and  full  of  spirit,  is  less  a  com- 
plete novel  than  a  tissue  of  adventures  after  the 
fashion  of  "Gil  Bias." 

167 


i68         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

There  are,  however,  a  half-dozen  stories  belonging 
to  the  later  period  of  Greek  literature  which  curiously 
anticipate  certain  types  of  modern  fiction.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  these  books  that  everything  about  them 
is  vague.  We  hardly  know  the  authors'  names; 
nothing  of  their  lives.  We  do  not  know  the  dates 
of  composition,  nor  which  were  imitations  and  which 
originals.  And  the  contents  are  vaguer  still.  Lovers 
from  far  countries  range  through  the  known  world, 
joyously  indifferent  to  history  and  chronology,  in- 
tent on  their  own  affairs,  and  regardless  of  what 
takes  place  about  them.  They  might  have  told  us 
so  much  that  we  should  like  to  know,  and  they  do 
not.  This  is  the  complaint  of  the  learned  Professor 
Rohde,  exhaled  at  German  length  in  six  hundred 
closely-printed  pages.  Not  to  be  compared  with 
modern  novels,  he  says,  no  psychology,  no  picture 
of  real  life  at  all;  and  when  I  read  Professor 
Meyer's  pronouncement,  that  "Die  Wahlverwand- 
schaften"  is  the  best  of  German  romances,  I  am 
obliged  to  confess  that  if  that  and  "Wilhelm  Mei- 
ster"  are  the  highest  types  of  fiction,  Chloe  and 
Chariclea  may  hide  their  heads  at  once. 

But  the  Greek  novels  were  not  written  for  pro- 
fessors. They  were  read  in  their  own  day  by  those 
who  read  Scott  and  Dumas  at  present.  And  I  greatly 
fear  "The  Three  Musketeers"  would  suit  Professors 
Rohde  and  Meyer  no  better  than  "Clitophon  and 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      169 

Leucippe."  The  Greek  novels  were  written  to  amuse 
and  to  enchant,  not  to  instruct.  Curiously  enough, 
I  think  we  may  infer  almost  certainly  from  their 
general  character  that  they  were  written,  as  most 
novels  are  to-day,  for  women.  And  we  must  imag- 
ine to  ourselves  a  Greek  lady,  with  no  church  fairs 
and  no  woman's  clubs  to  occupy  her  time,  throwing 
her  whole  soul  into  the  strange  adventures  of  Callir- 
rhoe,  and  longing  unutterably  for  a  husband  as  brave, 
as  handsome,  as  devoted,  as  the  much-enduring 
Chsereas.  Why  should  we  quarrel  with  these  stories 
for  what  they  are  not1?  Let  us  put  ourselves  in  the 
place  of  their  readers  and  inquire  what  those  readers 
found  in  them. 

And  first  and  everywhere  and  always  there  is  love. 
M.  Anatole  France  charmingly  misquotes  Gremio 
in  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  as  requiring  of  books 
only  "qu'ils  soient  bien  relies  et  qtfils  parlent 
d'amour"  The  Greek  romances  may  or  may  not  be 
beautifully  bound,  but  assuredly  they  speak  of  love 
and  of  nothing  else.  Psychologically,  no :  that  is  not 
their  way;  but  love  in  its  tenderness,  its  grace,  its 
early  and  youthful  pathos  they  often  depict  with  ex- 
traordinary charm.  "For  never  yet  was  any  one 
born  loveless,  or  will  be,  while  beauty  is,  or  eyes  be- 
hold. But  may  the  gods  spare  me,  even  while  I 
write  of  others'  woes,"  says  one  author.  Anthia  and 
Abrocomas  meet  at  last  in  the  temple,  after  years  of 


170         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

separation  and  torment  and  despair.  "They  knew 
each  other  at  once,  such  was  the  overwhelming  long- 
ing of  their  souls.  And  they  embraced  each  other 
again  and  again.  And  their  knees  sank  under  them, 
in  a  tide  of  passions  hardly  to  be  borne  —  joy,  grief, 
fear,  the  remembrance  of  things  past,  the  agony  and 
doubt  of  things  to  come." 

What  is  distinctive  in  these  stories,  as  in  Greek 
literature  generally,  is  the  conception  of  love  as  a 
visitation  and  scourge  of  God,  not  as  a  weakness  to 
be  ashamed  of,  nor  as  a  pretty  sentiment  to  be 
nursed  and  cherished.  Sainte-Beuve,  in  his  essay  on 
Theocritus,  has  admirably  analysed  the  difference 
between  ancient  and  modern  feeling  in  this  matter. 
Love  to  the  Greek  poet  was  a  malady,  a  fierce  af- 
fliction; but  the  sense  of  its  divine  origin  ennobled 
the  physical  torment  and  made  the  passion  of  Medea 
and  Dido  a  strong  blend  of  bodily  and  spiritual  ec- 
stasy. It  was  just  the  lack  of  this  essential  mingling 
of  soul  and  sense  which  Macaulay  meant  to  indi- 
cate when  he  said  that  Southey's  heroines  loved 
"either  like  seraphim  or  like  cattle."  And  the  Greek 
attitude  has  never  been  better  summed  up  than  in 
Euripides'  line. 

"  Ki»?rpts  yap  6v  fopyTbv  T\V  iroXXi)  pvy  " 


so  finely  paraphrased  by  Horace  — 

"In  me  tota  ruit  Venus," 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      171 

and  by  Racine — 

"C'est  Venus  tout  entiere  a  sa  proie  attachee." 

Phaedra  and  Dido  are  doubtless  a  good  way  above 
the  heroines  of  our  Greek  novels;  but  the  point  of 
view  is  the  same.  Love  comes  like  a  thunder-clap. 
The  heart  is  free,  and  the  god  envelops  it  and  blasts 
it  all  in  a  moment.  As  Juliet  speaks  ten  words  to 
Romeo  and  droops  and  withers — 

"If  he  be  married, 
My  grave  is  like  to  be  my  wedding  bed," — 

so  Callirrhoe  sees  Chsereas  on  her  way  to  the  temple 
and  is  lost.  "The  maiden  fell  at  the  feet  of  the 
goddess  and  kissed  them,  and  said,  'Sweet  lady,  give 
me  to  my  husband,  the  man  whom  you  have  showed 
me  now.' '  And  she  went  home  and  pined  away, 
and  was  not  to  be  comforted,  till  they  gave  her 
Chsereas.  Then,  "like  a  lamp  that  has  burned  low, 
when  you  pour  fresh  oil  on  it,"  she  "glowed  and 
gleamed  again,  in  fresher  and  brighter  and  more  per- 
fect loveliness." 

As  with  love,  so  with  the  beauty  that  enkindles  it. 
The  heroines  of  modern  novels  are  as  beautiful  as 
language  can  make  them,  undoubtedly.  But  here 
again  the  Greek  attitude  is  different.  It  is  not  a 
matter  of  hair  and  eyes  and  colour.  There  is  very 
little  description  in  detail.  It  is  the  Greek  feeling 


172         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

of  something  divine  in  beauty,  an  adoration  of  pure 
lines  and  graceful  bearing  as  something  in  them- 
selves almost  inseparable  from  grace  and  nobility 
of  soul.  The  impression  given  is  quite  as  much  of 
a  different  sense  in  the  beholder  as  of  an  ideal  per- 
fection in  the  thing  beheld. 

Note  also  that  the  mere  physical  beauty  of  the 
hero  counts  almost  as  much  as  that  of  the  heroine. 
"When  Abrocomas  took  his  place  amongst  the  young 
men,  although  the  aspect  of  the  maidens  was  very 
tempting,  every  one  forgot  them  in  gazing  at  him,  and 
the  multitude,  carried  away  by  the  sight  of  him, 
cried  out,  'How  fair  is  Abrocomas — fairer  than  ever 
mortal  was  before,  and  the  very  image  of  a  glorious 
deity.'  "  Almost,  not  quite — so  long  as  the  writer 
is  a  man,  even  though  a  Greek.  "Then  Chariclea, 
chaste  and  lovely,  issued  from  the  temple,  and  at 
once  we  realised  that  Theagenes  was  surpassed,  but 
surpassed  only  by  so  much  as  it  is  natural  for  the 
beauty  of  woman  to  overshadow  the  beauty  of  man." 

Perhaps  it  is  in  regard  to  Callirrhoe,  the  heroine 
of  Chariton,  that  the  public  and  general  adoration 
of  beauty  reaches  its  highest  pitch.  And  if  there  is 
something  fantastic  about  it,  there  is  also  something 
sincere  and  genuine,  which  testifies  to  a  real  basis  of 
human  experience.  Callirrhoe  is  summoned  to  the 
court  of  the  great  king.  As  she  approaches  the 
capital,  a  rival  beauty  comes  out  to  meet  her,  but  is 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      173 

completely  eclipsed.  "All  the  people  strained  not 
only  their  eyes,  but  their  souls,  one  crowding  be- 
fore another,  to  get  as  near  a  view  of  her  as  possible. 
For  the  countenance  and  the  glory  of  Callirrhoe 
possessed  the  eyes  of  all,  as  in  the  depth  of  night 
the  sudden  flashing  of  a  splendid  star.  The  barba- 
rians, overcome,  bowed  down  and  worshipped  her, 
and  no  one  even  seemed  aware  that  her  rival  was 
present."  A  more  humorous  phase  of  the  same  thing 
is  the  naive  remark  of  Callirrhoe  herself,  when  start- 
ing on  one  of  her  varied  wanderings,  "I  don't  care 
so  much  about  the  length  of  the  journey,  but  I'm 
afraid  that  somebody  over  there  may  find  me  lovely 
too." 

If  the  heroes  of  these  stories  excel  the  modern  ar- 
ticle in  physical  beauty,  it  is  by  no  means  the  same 
in  other  respects.  Our  friends,  the  German  profes- 
sors, are  very  indignant  with  the  Greek  hero  for  his 
selfishness  and  his  pusillanimity.  They  forget  that 
he  was  a  Greek,  not  a  German  or  Englishman.  The 
heroes  of  the  Iliad  fight  like  tigers,  but  they  also  run 
away,  and  feel  no  shame  for  it.  They  brag  and 
scold  and  gibe  and  weep  and  groan.  So  do  Thea- 
genes  and  Chsereas.  The  latter  is  advised  to  forget 
the  sight  of  his  love.  "He  did  not  like  it,  though 
he  did  his  best,  and  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks." 
Whenever  this  same  gentleman  meets  trouble,  he 
has  immediate  recourse  to  suicide,  and  has  to  be 


174         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

either  cut  down  or  pulled  out  by  some  accommodat- 
ing friend.  Hysmine  is  thrown  overboard  by  pirates, 
and  her  lover  stands  by  and  sees  it  done.  Clitophon 
loses  Leucippe:  "Six  months  had  now  passed,  and 
the  greater  part  of  my  grief  had  disappeared."  A 
little  later  he  is  caught  by  a  rival  and  beaten:  "I 
was  much  puzzled,  having  no  idea  who  the  man  was 
nor  why  he  was  beating  me;  but  I  suspected  some- 
thing was  wrong  and  therefore  made  no  effort  to  re- 
sist, though  of  course  I  might  have  done  so.  When 
he  was  tired  of  beating  and  I  of  philosophising,  I 
got  up  and  said,  'Who  are  you,  anyhow,  and  what 
are  you  beating  me  for*?' '  Imagine  a  hero  of  Mr. 
Winston  Churchill  behaving  after  this  fashion,  or 
even  a  hero  of  Scott !  . 

Yet  the  Greek  heroes  come  out  strong  at  times, 
with  an  inconsistency  which,  if  unheroic,  is  not 
wholly  unhuman.  After  all  his  weeping  and  mourn- 
ing, Theagenes  baits  a  bull  single-handed  and  has  a 
jollily  impossible  wrestling  bout  with  a  "bony 
prizer,"  whom  Orlando  would  have  hesitated  to 
face.  Chsereas,  throwing  off  his  suicidal  melan- 
cholia, regains  his  bride  by  leading  a  rebel  army,  be- 
sieging cities,  and  smashing  the  navy  of  Persia. 
Above  all,  the  most  striking  merit  of  these  romantic 
lovers  is  their  constancy,  which  a  modern  novelist 
would  naturally  assume,  but  would  hardly  portray 
in  such  vivid  fashion.  Every  one  of  them  sticks  to 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      175 

his  love,  in  spite  of  the  most  enticing  and  fascinating 
blandishments,  and  even  of  stripes  and  torture.  This 
trait  is  easy  to  ridicule,  but  it  is  really  most  signifi- 
cant. In  the  first  place,  it  confirms  our  suspicion 
that  these  stories  were  largely  written  for  women; 
and,  even  more  than  that,  it  seems  oddly  out  of 
keeping  with  our  usual  ideas  of  pagan  morality. 

The  heroines  are  worth  constancy,  however;  and 
in  making  them  distinctly  superior  to  their  lovers, 
the  Greek  novelists  have  Shakespeare,  at  any  rate, 
if  not  human  nature,  on  their  side.  Chariclea,  An- 
thia,  and  Callirrhoe  are  far  more  than  beautiful, 
they  are  truly  charming — simple,  tender,  affection- 
ate, brave,  self-forgetful.  They  will  lie  occasionally, 
for  the  good  of  the  cause.  What  Greek  would  not*? 
But  otherwise  they  are  quite  faultless,  and  not  of- 
fensively so.  For  spirit,  can  you  beat  Chariclea, 
shooting  arrow  after  arrow,  like  Artemis,  or  a  Hard- 
ing Davis  girl  with  a  revolver,  at  the  pirates  who 
are  fighting  for  the  possession  of  her  and  her  lover? 
And  for  tenderness,  how  about  Anthia,  who  implores 
Abrocomas  to  save  them  both  from  cruel  persecu- 
tion by  accepting  the  hand  of  the  pirate's  daughter? 
"I  know  you  love  me  more  than  the  whole  world, 
but  I  beseech  you,  O  sovereign  of  my  soul,  not  to 
destroy  yourself  by  braving  the  wrath  of  the  bar- 
barian !  Yield  to  the  tyrant's  desire,  and  I  will  not 
come  between  you,  but  will  kill  myself.  Only,  I 


176         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

beg  of  you,  bury  me,  and  love  me  a  little,  and  do  not 
forget  Anthia !" 

The  most  curious  difference  between  these  an- 
cient heroines  and  their  modern  counterparts  is  that 
Callirrhoe  and  Anthia,  at  least,  are  married  when 
the  story  begins.  Therefore,  instead  of  the  old  busi- 
ness of  the  lover  seeking  his  beloved,  we  have  hus- 
band and  wife,  separated,  and  faithful,  and  longing 
for  each  other  unspeakably,  and  re-united  at  last. 
And  that  seems  to  give  a  different  and  peculiar  charm 
and  tender  piquancy,  which  make  one  wonder  that 
modern  novelists  have  not  been  tempted  by  the  theme 
more  often.  Callirrhoe,  sold  into  slavery,  and  about 
to  become  a  mother,  hesitates  between  death  and 
second  marriage,  but  finally  decides  on  the  latter  al- 
ternative, as  the  only  means  of  saving  her  child.  Her 
prayer  to  Aphrodite  seems  to  me  singularly  touching 
in  its  absolute  simplicity:  "'I  beseech  thee,  sweet 
lady,  be  kinder  to  me  in  the  future.  I  have  suffered 
enough.  I  have  died  and  come  to  life  again.  I  have 
been  afflicted  by  pirates  and  more  afflicted  in  escap- 
ing from  them.  And.  now  I  have  been  sold  into 
slavery,  and  am  to  enter  upon  a  second  marriage, 
which  is  to  me  the  worst  evil  of  all.  Yet,  in  re- 
turn for  this.  I  ask  only  one  favour  of  thee,  and 
through  thee,  of  all  the  other  gods :  spare  my  child.' 
She  would  have  said  more,  but  her  tears  would  not 
permit." 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      177 

Other  characters  besides  the  heroes  and  heroines 
there  are  in  the  Greek  novels  practically  none — 
shadows,  puppets,  figures  of  circumstance,  playing 
their  part  in  the  action,  nothing  more. 

Likewise  there  is  little  local  colour — no  description 
of  frocks  or  furniture  or  shop  windows  or  afternoon 
teas,  such  as  French  realists  would  revel  in  and 
German  doctors  gloat  over.  Heliodorus  hangs  up 
his  narrative  for  a  book  to  tell  us  about  some  tedious 
Egyptian  ceremonial ;  but  he  does  it  awkwardly,  and 
hurries  back  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  rushing  stream 
of  adventure  which  is  his  proper  business. 

Ah,  the  adventure!  For  quantity  nobody  has 
piled  it  up  before  or  since  like  these  Greeks.  The 
editor  of  a  popular  magazine  for  young  people  is 
reported  to  have  said  to  the  late  Elijah  Kellogg, 
"Why  don't  you  write  more  for  us?"  And  Kellogg 
answered,  "It's  too  wasteful.  You  want  incident 
enough  in  one  short  story  to  last  me  through  six 
volumes."  But  the  most  popular  editor  would  be 
satisfied  here.  With  a  little  good-will  you  may  find 
everything  that  has  been  invented  and  re-invented 
by  all  the  novelists  of  yesterday  and  to-day.  Read 
the  opening  of  "Theagenes  and  Chariclea."  It 
might  have  served  as  well  for  G.  P.  R.  James :  "The 
morn  was  just  breaking,  and  the  sunlight  had  tipped 
the  mountain-tops,  when  a  band  of  armed  robbers 
paused  upon  the  summit  of  a  hill  which  overlooks 


178         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

one  of  the  branches  of  the  Nile  Delta.  First  their 
glances  swept  the  sea,  but  in  the  piratical  line  they 
found  no  encouragement.  Then  they  gazed  along 
the  coast,  and  this  is  what  they  saw." 

Long  ago  it  was  pointed  out  that  Juliet's  drinking 
of  the  potion  and  awaking  in  the  tomb  had  been 
anticipated  by  Anthia,  the  heroine  of  Xenophon  of 
Ephesus,  who  in  his  turn  probably  borrowed  from 
some  one  else.  So  the  marriage  of  Chsereas  and  Cal- 
lirrhoe  reconciles  two  houses  who  have  been  in  bit- 
ter feud.  And,  again,  Chsereas  is  driven  mad  with 
jealousy  by  Callirrhoe's  maid,  who  personates  her 
mistress,  as  in  "Much  Ado  About  Nothing." 

These  are  mere  trifles,  however,  in  the  furious 
tide  of  incident,  which  sweeps  the  reader  along  from 
one  breathless  page  to  another.  Earthquakes  and 
cataclysms,  perils  by  sea,  perils  by  land,  murder, 
threat  of  murder,  and  thrilling  rescue  from  murder, 
separations  and  recognitions,  ordeals  by  fire  and 
water,  strawberry  marks  on  the  left  arm — nothing 
is  wanting.  Anthia  is  twice  buried  alive,  the  second 
time  with  two  starved  dogs  for  company;  but  she 
escapes.  Don't  you  wonder  how?  Chariclea  is  to 
be  burned,  but  the  flames  will  not  touch  her.  Abro- 
comas  is  crucified,  but  a  fierce  wind  blows  him,  cross 
and  all,  into  the  river.  He  is  fished  out  and  a  fire 
is  kindled  around  him,  but  the  river  rises  and  ex- 
tinguishes the  blaze.  Leucippe  has  her  entrails  torn 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      179 

out  before  her  lover's  eyes,  but  she  re-appears,  cheer- 
ful as  ever.  Later  her  head  is  cut  off  (also  in  her 
lover's  sight)  but,  like  the  heroine  of  Sidney's  "Ar- 
cadia" after  a  similar  experience,  she  re-appears  once 
more.  "O  Leucippe,  Leucippe,"  cries  the  lover,  not 
unnaturally  somewhat  discouraged,  "you  have  died 
on  me  so  very,  very  often!"  It  reminds  one  of  the 
Irish  maid  who  exclaimed  on  the  occasion  of  her 
mistress's  third  widowhood,  "That  poor  lady's  hus- 
band has  died  again." 

Then  there  are  the  pirates:  other  diversions  may 
fail,  but  the  pirates  are  with  us  always.  You  may 
know  them  by  their  terrible  aspect,  and  especially 
by  their  long  hair.  If  Mr.  Howard  Pyle  would  only 
draw  a  few,  with  haggard  eyes,  and  spots  of  gore, 
and  always  with  that  long  hair!  I  commend  this 
remark  of  Heliodorus  to  Mr.  Pyle's  particular  at- 
tention: "These  fellows  do  everything  they  can 
to  appear  blood-curdling.  Above  all,  they  let  their 
hair  grow  down  over  their  eyes  and  far  on  to  their 
shoulders,  knowing  well  that  long  hair  makes  lovers 
more  lovely,  but  pirates  more  awful."  Such  a  gor- 
geous fight  as  begins  "Theagenes  and  Chariclea," 
when  the  pirates  divide  into  two  parties  and  kill 
each  other,  every  last  man,  while  the  hero  and  he- 
roine take  a  hand  at  convenient  intervals  and  other- 
wise placidly  await  the  result.  Chassang  complains 
that  these  are  not  real  pirates,  but  the  comic  opera 


i8o         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

variety.  Bless  his  professorial  heart !  Does  he  sup- 
pose the  readers  of  these  stories  wanted  real  pirates'? 
— "that  would  hang  us,  every  mother's  son."  They 
must  roar,  but  they  must  roar  gently  as  any  suck- 
ing dove,  so  as  not  to  affright  the  duchess  and  the 
ladies. 

All  this  is,  of  course,  very  primitive,  very  crude, 
inartistic,  and  overloaded.  Yet  sometimes  it  moves 
you.  "So  long  as  the  human  nerves  are  what  they 
are,  so  long  will  things  like  the  sounding  of  the 
horn,  in  the  famous  fifth  act  of  'Hernani,'  produce 
a  thrill  hi  us,"  says  Matthew  Arnold.  I  was  glad 
myself  that  Leucippe  came  to  life  again.  So  with 
the  repetition  of  the  same  incidents.  The  German 
critics  complain  bitterly  of  this — though  how  could 
it  have  been  helped,  when  the  first  writer  had  used 
everything  that  exists  in  nature?  But  the  point  is 
that  readers  like  what  they  know — witness  the  ex- 
traordinary limitation  of  our  modern  historical  nov- 
els to  the  Stuarts  and  Valois.  Sarcey's  two  rules 
apply  to  novels  as  to  lecturing:  be  sure  you  make 
your  material  your  own,  and  never  tell  your  audience 
anything  they  did  not  know  before.  Again,  Rohde 
grumbles  because  all  these  adventures  are  external — 
no  psychology,  no  inward  analysis  at  all.  But  in- 
ward analysis  was  not  what  readers  wanted — or 
want  to-day.  To  simple  minds  violent  incidents  are 
the  natural  stuff  of  fiction.  To  simple  minds  earth- 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      181 

quakes,  shipwreck,  pirates,  lust,  and  bloody  murder 
are  beautifully  simple;  what  is  complex  and  labo- 
rious and  subtly  difficult  is  the  adventures  of  the  soul. 
And  he  who  cannot  render  his  mind  simple,  for  a  few 
hours  at  least,  is  not  to  be  envied,  but  pitied. 

But  it  is  their  possible  reality  which  distinguishes 
the  adventures  of  the  Greek  novels  most  of  all  from 
the  modern.  Our  pirates  exist  only  in  the  hirsute 
and  rubicund  imagination  of  Mr.  Howard  Pyle.  But 
to  the  Greek  lady  a  pirate  was  a  splendid  actual 
shudder,  who  might  at  any  moment  tear  her  away 
and  put  her  through  all  the  torments  endured  by 
Chariclea  or  Callirrhoe.  To  understand  how  literal 
these  violent  incidents  were  we  have  only  to  turn 
from  popular  fiction  to  the  real  experience  of  St. 
Paul,  in  a  period  little  earlier  than  that  of  our  ro- 
mances: "Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  was 
I  stoned,  thrice  have  I  suffered  shipwreck,  a  day  and 
a  night  have  I  been  in  the  deep.  In  journeyings  of- 
ten, in  perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in 
perils  by  mine  own  countrymen,  in  perils  by  the 
heathen,  in  perils  of  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilder- 
ness, in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among  false 
brethren."  It  would  be  difficult  to  make  a  more  con- 
cise catalogue  of  the  adventures  by  which  the  luck- 
less Greek  novelists  excite  the  wrath  of  the  learned 
Rohde. 

There  is  so  little  mystery  left  in  the  world  nowa- 


182         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

days  that  we  do  not  understand  what  the  word 
meant  two  thousand  years  ago.  Now  the  unknown  is 
only  a  spot  about  the  poles,  and  perhaps  a  bit  of 
Asia  or  Africa — even  that  tramped  over  by  presi- 
dents with  caravans  and  cameras.  Then  it  was  all 
unknown.  What  strange  surprises,  what  sudden 
thrills,  what  wonders,  what  miracles  awaited  the 
imagination,  as  soon  as  it  strayed  from  the  accus- 
tomed nook!  And  as  with  the  material  world,  so. 
with  the  spiritual:  nothing  of  the  dry  certainty  of 
modern  thought,  indifferent  to  the  casual  interplay 
of  winds  and  tides,  measuring,  weighing,  balancing 
even  the  brute  forces  that  overwhelm  it.  With  those 
old  people  there  was  always  the  sense  of  the  un- 
known, of  dim  powers,  of  hidden  personalities,  some 
loving,  some  hating,  some  mocking,  all  to  be  courted 
and  appeased.  The  presence  of  these  things  is  con- 
stantly felt  in  the  Greek  novels;  and  while  it  is 
doubtless,  in  part,  as  scornful  critics  suggest,  rhe- 
torical and  literary,  it  also  unquestionably  reaches 
down  into  genuine  depths  of  spiritual  disturbance 
and  dismay.  The  long  picaresque  narrative  of  Apu- 
leius  is  a  mine  of  supernatural  matter:  witchcraft, 
spells,  transformations,  oracles,  and  dreams. 
Dreams  especially  are  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  Greek 
romancers :  young  and  old  hearken  after  them  as  ea- 
gerly as  Hebrew  prophets.  And  omens  and  oracles 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      183 

— now  and  then  there  is  a  sceptical  gibe,  but  the 
usual  tone  is  to  interpret  and  believe. 

And  the  land  which  above  all  others  abounds  in 
such  things  is  the  paradise  of  all  the  novelists,  Egypt. 
They  may  start  their  characters  in  Greece,  or  Sicily, 
or  Syria:  but  somehow  or  other  Egypt  always  gets 
hold  of  them  at  last.  "Tell  a  story  about  Egypt 
and  all  Greece  is  agog  at  once,"  says  Heliod- 
orus.  Obviously  because  of  the  contrast.  Greece 
was  clear,  bright-eyed,  simple,  living  in  the  present : 
Egypt  was  always  dreaming  of  the  past,  and  forgot- 
ten glory,  and  the  dead.  It  is  properly  in  Egypt  that 
this  same  Heliodorus  lays  the  grimmest  of  all  his 
inventions — that  of  the  old  woman  calling  her  dead 
son  to  life  by  magic,  that  he  may  tell  her  of  his 
brother's  fate.  Heine,  as  quick  as  any  one  who  ever 
lived  to  seize  these  contradictions,  has  set  Greece  and 
Egypt  over  against  each  other  in  his  discussion  of 
Shakespeare's  Cleopatra.  "You  know  Egypt,  that 
mysterious  Mizraim,  that  narrow  Nile  valley,  which 
looks  like  a  coffin.  In  the  tall  bullrushes  lurks  the 
crocodile,  or  the  outcast  child  of  revelation.  Rock 
temples,  with  colossal  pillars,  and  sacred  monsters 
leaning  against  them,  high-coloured  hideously.  In 
the  portal  nods  a  priest  of  Isis,  his  cap  all  hiero- 
glyphs. In  lofty  villas  mummies  dream  away  the 
world,  screened  by  their  gold  shrouds  from  the 
swarming  armies  of  corruption.  Like  dumb  thoughts 


184         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

rise  the  thin  obelisks  and  the  plump  pyramids.  In 
the  background  soar  the  moon  mountains  of  Ethio- 
pia, hiding  forever  the  sources  of  the  Nile.  Every- 
where death,  stone,  and  mystery.  And  over  this 
land  the  lovely  Greek  Cleopatra  is  queen." 

Yet  superstition  and  religion  are  never  far  apart. 
And  the  spiritual  attitude  of  the  Greek  heroes  and 
heroines  is  not  wholly  abject,  but  sometimes  has  a 
very  pure  and  tender  charm.  It  has  been  urged,  in- 
deed, and  with  some  reason,  that  their  prayers  are 
too  often  addressed  to  Chance,  Tyche,  in  Malvolio's 
phrase,  "Fortune,  all  is  Fortune."  But  even  the 
austere  ^Eschylus  acknowledges  the  same  wayward 
deity,  "Fortune,  our  saviour."  Souls  naturally  de- 
vout may  revere  the  spiritual  reality  under  very  dif- 
ferent names,  and  the  prayers  of  Chariclea  and  Cal- 
lirrhoe  have  genuine  fervour,  though  offered  to  gods 
who  do  not  seem  to  us  very  godlike. 

It  is  with  morals  as  with  religion.  I  have  been 
surprised  to  find  in  these  stories,  or  some  of  them,  a 
tone  quite  different  from  what  one  might  expect. 
The  morals  of  Greek  romance  are  not  in  every  way 
our  morals,  especially  in  the  light  regard  for  truth 
which  I  have  already  spoken  of  as  troubling  us  in 
otherwise  most  charming  heroines.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  a  singular  sweetness  of  tone,  a  kindliness,  an 
element  of  human  sympathy;  there  is  a  high  esti- 
mate of  virtue  and  goodness,  even  where  they  are 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      185 

not  habitually  practised:  most  remarkable  of  all, 
there  is  an  entire  seriousness  in  the  treatment  of 
moral  questions,  an  almost  nai've  sincerity,  nothing 
whatever,  absolutely  nothing,  of  the  leer  of  Ariosto 
and  Boccaccio,  or  even  of  the  riotous  coarseness  of 
Chaucer  and  Rabelais.  This  delicacy  of  tone  is  per- 
haps the  most  peculiar  thing  about  the  Greek  novels 
and  is  especially  what  convinces  me  that  they  must 
have  been  written  for  women. 

There  is  a  difference,  however,  and  the  novels  may 
be  divided  quite  sharply  into  two  groups.  Heliodo- 
rus,  Xenophon,  and  Chariton  deserve  the  compli- 
ments I  have  just  been  paying  them.  They  evidently 
write  with  a  moral  instinct,  though  there  are  trifling 
inconsistencies  of  detail.  Artistically,  also,  they 
stand  together.  Their  object  is  to  tell  a  story  that 
shall  thrill  and  stir  and  startle.  Heliodorus  does  it 
with  a  better  grace;  the  others  do  it  more  naturally. 
But  none  of  the  three  cares  for  much  besides  adven- 
ture, incident,  sentiment,  and  virtue  properly  re- 
warded. 

The  other  group,  consisting  of  Longus  and  Tatius, 
is  more  exceptionable  from  a  moral  point  of  view, 
but  as  literature  much  more  interesting.  Tatius's 
morals  are  hardly  suited  for  discussion,  though  even 
with  him  there  is  no  cynicism,  merely  an  attitude 
totally  different  from  ours.  But  as  a  writer  he  is 


186         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

of  distinct  importance,  a  true  lover  of  words,  and  a 
consummate  master  of  them. 

Even  more  important  is  Longus,  with  his  "Daph- 
nis  and  Chloe";  and  here  we  have  the  only  one  of 
these  Greek  stories  that  really  deserves  very  serious 
consideration  as  matter  of  art.  The  moral  difficulty 
does  indeed  again  confront  us.  But  on  re-reading 
the  book,  I  feel  more  than  ever  that  there  is  neither 
impurity  nor  corruption,  simply  Greek  nudity,  a 
nudity  not  possible  in  modern  English,  but  in  no 
way  ugly  or  offensive  with  the  ugliness  and  offen- 
siveness  of  so  many  French  plays  and  novels. 

The  little  romance  is  really  a  poem,  the  last  flower- 
ing of  old  Greek  beauty,  the  last  relic  of  that  pastoral 
grace  which  holds  us  enthralled  in  the  pages  of  The- 
ocritus. Even  as  a  story  it  is  on  a  different  plane 
from  Heliodorus  and  the  rest.  There  is  the  same 
use  of  incident,  pirates,  etc.;  but  the  incident  is 
handled  with  more  of  artistic  restraint,  the  strange 
happenings  have  more  of  divine  fitness  and  poetic 
beauty — as  when  Chloe,  by  merely  playing  on  the 
pipe  of  Pan,  makes  all  the  stolen  herd  crowd  to  the 
side  of  the  pirate  ship,  overturn  it,  and  swim  safe  to 
shore  with  the  triumphant  Daphnis. 

And  the  magic  of  the  style  is  much  greater  than 
that  of  the  story.  Rhetoric,  say  the  critics,  and  con- 
trast the  sweet  naivete  of  the  old  French  translation 
by  Amyot.  No  one  need  deny  the  merits  of  Amyot, 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      187 

or  maintain  that  the  original  is  naive  in  exactly 
Amyot's  fashion.  He  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  a 
literature,  Longus  at  the  end.  But  a  great  writer  is 
a  great  writer  always.  The  simplicity  of  "Hermann 
und  Dorothea"  is  a  conscious  simplicity.  The  sim- 
plicity of  Wordsworth  is  a  conscious  simplicity. 
What  can  be  more  exquisite  than  the  simplicity  of 
M.  Anatole  France1?  Yet  we  know  that  it  is  the 
studied  result  of  the  most  subtle  literary  art.  So 
Longus  was  cunning  in  every  resource  of  rhythm  and 
diction,  but  he  used  these  resources  with  taste  and 
skill  and  delicacy  to  produce  something  very  near  a 
masterpiece. 

Goethe  was  an  enthusiast  for  the  book.  "The 
whole  work,"  he  said  to  Eckermann,  "shows  art 
and  refined  cultivation  of  the  highest  order  ...  a 
taste,  a  sense  of  perfection,  a  delicacy  of  sentiment 
comparable  to  the  very  best.  .  .  .  One  would  do 
well  to  re-read  it  every  year  to  renew  the  impression 
in  all  its  freshness."  What  charmed  Goethe  most 
was,  of  course,  the  pastoral  grace  of  the  story,  its 
exquisitely  pure  and  simple  lines.  "The  landscape," 
he  cried,  "the  landscape !  It  is  sketched  with  a  few 
strokes  ...  so  that  behind  the  figures  we  see  clearly 
the  meadows,  the  river,  the  low  woods,  and  far  away 
the  infinite  sea.  No  trace  of  dark  days,  or  clouds, 
or  raw,  dank  mist;  always  a  sky  of  purest  blue,  an 
air  deliciously  soft,  and  the  earth  so  dry  and  sweet 


i88         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

that  you  could  lie  on  it  all  day  without  a  garment." 
Precisely  this  purity  of  outline  makes  Longus  dif- 
ficult to  translate,  and  without  the  gift  of  Amyot  per- 
haps it  is  rash  to  attempt  such  a  thing;  yet  we  must 
have  one  passage  at  least.  Chloe,  hardly  more  than 
a  child,  is  touched  by  love  for  Daphnis,  and  does 
not  understand  it.  "  'I  am  ill  at  ease,'  she  said;  'yet 
I  know  not  what  ails  me.  I  suffer,  but  no  cause  of 
suffering  appears.  I  am  troubled,  yet  no  one  of 
my  lambs  has  gone  astray.  .  .  .  How  many  thorns 
have  pricked  me  and  I  have  not  wept?  How  many 
bees  have  stung  me,  yet  I  have  eaten  gaily  after- 
wards? But  this  bites  my  heart  more  cruelly  than 
thorns  or  bees.  Daphnis  is  fair;  so  are  the  flowers. 
His  pipe  sounds  sweetly;  so  do  the  nightingales.  But 
neither  nightingales  nor  flowers  are  anything  to  me. 
Would  I  were  a  pipe,  that  he  might  breathe  upon  me ! 
Would  I  were  a  lamb,  that  he  might  shepherd  me! 
...  I  am  perishing,  sweet  nymphs,  and  not  even 
you  will  save  the  maiden  you  have  reared!  Who 
will  honour  you  when  I  have  gone  away?  Who  will 
feed  my  wretched  lambs'?  Who  will  tend  my  twit- 
tering cicada?  Him  I  captured  with  much  labour, 
that  he  might  sing  me  to  sleep  sitting  in  the  shadow 
of  your  cave.  Now  I  lie  awake  for  Daphnis,  and 
the  poor  captive  twitters  in  vain !' ' 

But  it  should  be  read  in  the  original,  not  in  my 
translation,  nor  even  in  Amyot's.     So  only  can  one 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO      189 

get  the  charm  of  it,  that  Greek  something  which  is 
lost  now,  and  which  neither  the  mystery  of  the 
Middle  Age,  nor  the  splendour  of  the  Renaissance, 
nor  the  human  sympathy  of  the  nineteenth  century 
can  quite  replace — that  something  which  Goethe 
meant  when  he  said,  "The  art  of  all  other  times  and 
nations  requires  some  allowance :  to  the  Greeks  alone 
are  we  always  debtor."  No  one  has  more  delicately 
analysed  this  charm  of  Greek  life  and  work  than 
Sainte-Beuve,  in  his  delightful  essay  on  Theocritus, 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted.  In  a  few  words 
of  translation  and  comment  he  sums  up  the  whole 
matter:  "  Thus  let  me  sit  and  sing,  having  thee 
in  my  arms,  love  in  my  arms,  beholding  our  two 
herds  mingled  together,  and  far  below  us  the  blue, 
divine  Sicilian  sea.'  That  is  what  I  call  the  Raphsel 
in  Theocritus :  three  simple  lines,  and  the  blue  hori- 
zon crowning  all." 

1909 


VIII 
A  GREAT  ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER 


VIII 

A   GREAT    ENGLISH    PORTRAIT-PAINTER 

ENGLAND  has  no  great  portrait-painter  of 
the  Renaissance  to  put  beside  those  of  Italy, 
of  the  Low  Countries,  and  of  Spain.  If  her 
brave  men  and  fair  women  of  the  first  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century  still  live  on  canvas,  it  is  mainly 
thanks  to  a  foreign  artist  who  found  early  that  the 
English  could  pay,  though  they  could  not  paint. 
They  could  also  use  the  pen,  if  not  the  brush. 
Neither  Sir  Joshua  nor  Gainsborough  later,  not  even 
Vandyke  or  Velasquez  or  Titian,  could  have  painted 
English  gentlemen  more  grandly  or  more  imperish- 
ably  than  did  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

He  has  painted  himself  at  full  length,  at  very 
great  length,  with  a  power  and  an  insight  not  un- 
comparable  to  the  best  in  the  Uffizi  chamber  of  self- 
portraiture.  Side  by  side  with  his  great  "History" 
runs  the  slighter  current  of  his  own  "Life,"  slighter, 
but  clearer,  gayer,  more  vivid,  with  less  ample  curve, 
less  solid  majesty,  as  a  plain  prose  outline  by  a  fin- 
ished poem. 

He  was  a  man  who  mingled  early  with  great 
193 


194         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

people  and  great  things  and  liked  to  look  upward; 
for  he  "never  knew  one  man,  of  what  condition  so- 
ever, arrive  to  any  degree  of  reputation  in  the  world 
who  made  choice  of  or  delighted  in  the  company  or 
conversation  of  those  who  were  inferior  or  in  their 
parts  not  much  superior  to  himself."  It  was  thus 
that  he  sought  the  society  of  Selden,  of  Cowley,  of 
Carew,  of  Ben  Jonson,  who  knew  the  human  heart 
and  perhaps  taught  his  young  friend  some  of  its  se- 
crets. Of  Selden,  Hyde  says,  simply  (writing  as 
usual  in  the  third  person),  "He  always  thought 
himself  best  when  he  was  with  him." 

Then  there  came  days  of  trouble  in  England,  and 
Hyde  was  in  the  thick  of  it,  so  that  no  man  ever 
lived  who  had  more  chance  of  seeing  good  sides  of 
human  nature,  bad  sides,  all  sides,  than  he.  He  not 
only  saw,  but  acted  with  hand  and  brain.  He  loved 
freedom,  but  he  also  loved  old,  sacred  things,  and 
stood  for  the  Crown,  if  not  always  for  the  King. 
His  masters  made  him  Lord  Chancellor,  and  listened 
to  his  advice,  and  sometimes  heeded  it,  and  some- 
times not,  and  perhaps  might  not  have  profited  even 
if  they  had. 

Then  came  ruin  and  despair  and  exile.  And  Hyde 
was  often  wise  and  always  faithful.  With  the  Res- 
toration he  grew  very  great  and  was  honest  at  heart 
and  strove  against  the  overwhelming  stream  of  cor- 
ruption about  him  perhaps  as  effectually  as  one  man 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      195 

could.  "Had  it  not  been  for  the  firmness  of  the  Earl 
of  Clarendon  the  liberties  of  the  nation  had  been 
delivered  up,"  says  the  blunt  Burnet.  And  Pepys: 
"I  am  mad  in  love  with  my  Lord  Chancellor,  for  he 
do  comprehend  and  speak  out  well  and  with  the 
greatest  easiness  and  authority  that  ever  I  saw  man 
in  my  life.  .  .  .  He  spoke  indeed  excellent  well; 
...  his  manner  and  freedom  of  doing  it  as  if  he 
played  with  it,  and  was  informing  only  all  the  rest 
of  the  company,  was  mighty  pretty." 

Here  we  begin  to  detect  the  weaknesses,  as,  indeed, 
they  may  be  detected  in  the  man's  own  account  of 
himself.  He  was  haughty  and  unapproachable,  "a 
man  not  to  be  advised,  thinking  himself  too  high  to 
be  counselled,"  says  Pepys  again.  Worse  still,  dam- 
nably worse,  to  Charles  the  Second's  thinking,  he 
was  tedious.  Says  Burnet:  "He  was  also  all  that 
while  giving  the  King  many  wise  and  good  advices, 
but  he  did  it  too  much  with  the  air  of  a  governor 
or  a  lawyer."  What  the  King  felt  about  it  Claren- 
don himself  lets  us  see,  involuntarily,  when  he  writes 
of  the  Stuarts  in  general:  "They  did  not  love  the 
conversation  of  men  of  many  more  years  than  them- 
selves, and  thought  age  not  only  troublesome  but  im- 
pertinent." And  I  say  to  myself  Polonius,  oh,  Polo- 
nius,  for  all  the  world!  Polonius  was  wise  and 
shrewd  and  really  full  of  good  counsel.  But  he  was 
tedious.  And  that  other  great  painter,  Saint-Simon, 


196         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

also  played  a  weary  Polonius  to  the  mad  Duke  of 
Orleans. 

So  the  King's  patience  gave  out  at  last.    That  of 
others  had  given  out  long  before.     The  Chancellor 
made  a  good  fight,   recovering  himself  again  and 
again  when  no  recovery  seemed  possible.     But  his 
enemies  were  too  many  for  him,  and  succeeded  in 
driving  him  once  more  into  exile,  from  which  he 
never  returned.    He  bore  himself  bravely,  which  was 
well.    And  prided  himself  on  it,  which  was  perhaps 
less  well.    He  himself  says :    "The  truth  is  the  Chan- 
cellor was  guilty  of  that  himself  which  he  had  used 
to  accuse  Archbishop  Laud  of,  that  he  was  too  proud 
of  a  good  conscience."     Nevertheless,  he  confesses 
with  charming  frankness  the  very  one  of  his  faults 
which  was  most  treasured  against  him,  his  love  of 
grandeur,   display,   extravagance;   and   admits   the 
folly  of  his  huge  new  mansion,  which  overshadowed 
the  King's:     "He  could  not  reflect  upon  any  one 
thing  he  had  done  of  which  he  was  so  much  ashamed 
as  he  was  of  the  vast  expense  he  had  made  in  the 
building  of  his  house."     He  "could  not  find  any 
house  to  live  in  except  he  built  one  himself  (to  which 
he  was  naturally  too  much  inclined)."     And  in  ex- 
ile "he  remained  still  so  much  infected  with  the  de- 
light he  had  enjoyed"  that  he  was  unwilling  to  sell. 
Meantime,  thus  driven  back  upon  himself,  he  gave 
his  idle  hours  to  building  an  even  grander  mansion 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      197 

in  which  we  can  wander  to-day  and  see  a  richer  col- 
lection of  portraits  than  that  which  made  Clarendon 
House  the  envy  of  all  contemporaries. 

The  History  of  the  Rebellion,  as  mere  writing, 
leaves  much  to  be  desired.  It  is  not  readable.  The 
course  of  the  story  is  clogged  with  ill-digested  ma- 
terial, letters,  petitions,  despatches,  statutes.  Toward 
the  end  these  diminish  in  number  and  the  action  be- 
comes more  closely  knit  and  vigorous.  There  are  in 
the  later  volumes  many  bits  of  swift  and  vivid  nar- 
rative, notably  the  admirable  account  of  Charles 
the  Second's  escape  after  the  battle  of  Worcester. 
Still,  to  make  any  continuous  and  steady  progress 
in  the  book  requires  a  reader  of  patience  and  perse- 
verance. Even  in  the  great  battle-pieces  the  his- 
torian is  by  no  means  at  his  best.  They  are  con- 
fused, slow,  lacking  intense  and  salient  situations. 
Now  and  then  a  gorgeous  high  light  strikes  a  fair 
head  or  a  glittering  cuirass,  but  the  general  course  of 
things  is  lost  in  smoke. 

For  Clarendon  has  not  only  the  Elizabethan  cum- 
brousness  in  the  conduct  of  his  story,  he  has  the 
Elizabethan  inarticulateness.  He  may  have  known 
Pryden,  if  he  condescended  to  look  down  so  far. 
He  knew  nothing  of  that  inimitable  march  of  com- 
mon prose  which  Dryden  learned  from  French  clarity 
and  native  wit.  Clarendon  has  often  Milton's 
grandeur.  He  also  has  too  often  Milton's  heaviness 


198         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

and  a  trailing  incoherence  outdoing  Milton's.  He 
himself  accuses  Selden  of  "a  little  undervaluing 
the  beauty  of  style  and  too  much  propensity  to  the 
language  of  antiquity."  But  to  eyes  of  the  twentieth 
century  his  own  writing  seems  liable  to  the  same 
accusation.  He  has  sentences  of  a  singular,  haunting 
grace  and  beauty:  "He  had  no  ambition  of  title 
or  office  or  preferment,  but  only  to  be  kindly  looked 
upon  and  kindly  spoken  to  and  quietly  to  enjoy  his 
own  fortune."  He  has  many  others  which  an  Ameri- 
can school-boy  would  be  ashamed  of,  like  this  wan- 
dering concatenation  of  relatives :  "The  Prince  left 
a  strong  garrison  there  that  brought  almost  all  that 
whole  country  into  contribution,  which  was  a  great 
enlargement  to  the  King's  quarters,  which  now,  with- 
out interruption,  extended  from  Oxford  to  Wor- 
cester, which  important  city,  with  the  other  of  Here- 
ford and  those  counties,  had  before  been  quitted  by 
the  rebels."  It  may  be  said  that  such  faults  should 
be  overlooked  in  a  great  writer,  but  it  is  precisely  be- 
cause of  them  that  the  modern  general  reader  shuns 
Clarendon  and  knows  nothing  of  him. 

In  his  political  and  philosophical  view  of  human 
affairs  at  large  Clarendon  is  distinctly  a  moderate, 
even  a  liberal.  He  prefers  the  old  constitution  and 
traditions  of  England.  He  has  no  love  for  the  ex- 
treme vagaries  of  Puritans  in  religion  or  of  republi- 
cans in  matters  of  state.  Yet  no  one  appreciates 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      199 

more  clearly  then  he  the  errors  and  excesses  of  Stuart 
absolutism,  even  before  the  Restoration:  "I  pray 
God  the  almighty  justice  be  not  angry  with  and 
weary  of  the  government  of  kings  and  princes,  for 
it  is  a  strange  declension  monarchical  government  is 
fallen  to,  in  the  opinion  of  the  common  people  within 
these  late  years." 

It  is  not,  however,  with  Clarendon's  attitude 
toward  life  in  general  that  we  are  here  concerned, 
but  with  his  portrayal  of  men  and  women,  of  the 
human  heart.  Though  we  employ  to  some  extent  the 
phraseology  of  painting,  it  is  essential  to  realise  the 
difference  between  the  two  methods  of  representa- 
tion which  Lessing  long  ago  discussed  so  fruitfully. 
Lines  and  colours  give  us  at  once  the  individual  face. 
This  words  can  never  do.  You  may  analyse  fea- 
tures, you  may  dissect  expressions,  you  may  pile  de- 
tail upon  detail.  But  the  more  you  elaborate,  the 
further  you  get  from  unity  of  effect.  The  more  you 
charge  memory  with  particular  outlines,  the  less  you 
succeed  in  producing  a  complete,  definite,  permanent 
image.  "The  description  of  a  face  is  a  needless 
thing,  as  it  never  conveys  a  true  idea,"  says  Lady 
Mary  Montagu,  curtly,  but  in  the  main  justly.  No. 
The  art  of  the  word  painter  is  suggestion.  Take,  in 
a  little  different  field,  the  line  of  Keats, 

"Fast-fading  violets  covered  up  in  leaves." 


200         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

The  landscape  artist  can  render  the  violets  peeping 
from  their  leafy  covert  with  infinite  delicacy  and 
grace.  What  he  can  never  render,  except  as  he  finds 
a  willing  spirit  to  interpret,  is  the  poet's  comment, 
the  world  of  reflection  and  emotion  contained  in  the 
epithet,  "fast-fading."  So  with  the  portrayal  of 
men.  The  cunning  artist  who  has  only  words  at 
his  disposal  will  not  delay  long  in  trying  to  convey 
exactness  and  completeness  of  lineament.  He  will 
strike  out  some  quick  touch  of  feeling,  some  hint  of 
passion,  some  profound  association  of  thought,  or 
achievement,  or  desire.  This  will  not  always  be  con- 
fined to  the  spiritual  world.  It  may  be  intensely 
physical.  But  the  effect  will  be  an  effect  of  sug- 
gestion, not  of  reproduction.  That  is  the  essential 
point.  Thus  Shakespeare  gives  Cassius  "a  lean  and 
hungry  look,"  and  Milton's  Satan  appears  not  "less 
than  archangel  ruined  and  the  excess  of  glory  ob- 
scured." Thus  Tacitus  depicts  Otho  "stretching  out 
kind  hands,  flattering  the  mob,  flinging  kisses,  doing 
all  things  like  a  slave  that  he  might  rule  all  things." 
Thus  Saint-Simon  strikes  off  one  of  his  minor  figures, 
tumbling  body  and  soul  together  in  passionate  hurly- 
burly:  "She  was  starched,  made  up,  always  em- 
barrassed, a  wit  scarce  natural,  an  affected  devotion, 
full  of  outwardness  and  odd  fashions ;  in  two  words, 
nothing  amiable,  nothing  sociable,  nothing  natural; 
tall,  straight,  an  air  which  wished  to  impose,  yet  to 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      201 

be  gentle;  austere  and  distinctly  verging  on  the  bit- 
ter-sweet. No  one  could  get  on  with  her,  and  she 
could  get  on  with  nothing  and  nobody.  She  was 
charmed  to  have  done  with  it  all  and  go,  and  no  one 
had  the  slightest  desire  to  detain  her."  Whoever 
reads  Clarendon  faithfully  will  see  that  in  this  art 
of  suggestion,  of  stimulating  the  imagination,  he  is 
one  of  the  richest,  the  mightiest,  the  most  fruitful  of 
all  the  great  masters  of  words. 

The  chief  danger  which  besets  the  painter  of  soul 
is  rhetoric.  Words  are  his  instruments.  He  must 
keep  them  bright  and  polished,  must  get  from  them 
all  their  resources  of  music  and  power,  study  them, 
profit  by  them  always  with  fertile  variety  and  end- 
less inspiration.  But  they  must  be  his  servants,  not 
his  masters.  He  must  make  all  this  use  of  them  by 
instinct,  as  it  were;  for  his  eyes,  his  thoughts,  his 
whole  heart,  must  be  always  on  his  subject.  He  must 
be  penetrated  by  it,  wrapt  in  it ;  it  must  speak  right 
through  him  and  dominate  all  his  powers  of  ex- 
pression in  instinctive  service.  The  instant  we  feel 
that  he  is  thinking  more  of  his  effects  than  of  his 
characters,  that  tricks  of  speech  are  more  to  him 
than  secrets  of  soul,  that  instant  we  lose  our  confi- 
dence. He  may  amuse,  he  will  rarely  inspire. 

Of  course  every  writer  has  his  rhetorical  moments. 
There  are  turns  in  Tacitus,  turns  in  Saint-Simon,  that 
one  could  wish  away.  When  Clarendon  says  of  the 


202         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Earl  of  Arundel  that  "he  resorted  sometimes  to  the 
court  because  there  only  was  a  greater  man  than 
himself,  and  went  thither  the  seldomer  because  there 
was  a  greater  man  than  himself,"  we  feel  that  he  is 
even  more  anxious  to  show  Clarendon's  cleverness 
than  Arundel's  vanity.  But  in  the  really  great 
soul-painters  these  slips  are  rare,  because  their  pas- 
sion for  human  truth  engrosses  them  beyond  any- 
thing else.  In  lesser  men  the  passion  for  human 
truth  is  a  less  serious  matter.  Macaulay's  "History 
of  England"  is  as  rapid,  as  brilliant,  as  absorbing  as 
a  well-constructed  drama.  If  only  one  could  rid 
one's  self  of  the  impression  that  one  is  watching  a 
clever  variety  actor  doing  tricks ! 

What  interests' Clarendon  is  not  tricks,  but  men. 
To  be  sure,  with  him  as  with  Saint-Simon  the  gift 
lies  quite  as  much  in  imaginative  portrayal  as  in 
moral  insight.  It  is  the  new  word,  the  old  words 
used  new  ways,  the  significant  touch,  the  illuminat- 
ing flash.  But  the  difference  from  Macaulay  is 
simply  that  the  other  two  think  of  the  subject  first, 
of  the  word  only  second,  if  at  all. 

Nor  do  I  wish  to  imply  that  Clarendon's  insight 
is  less  than  his  imagination.  He  could  not  have 
painted  if  he  had  not  seen.  The  fine  secrets,  the 
deeper  places  of  the  human  heart,  are  open  to  him. 
Gardiner  refers  to  "his  usual  habit  of  blundering," 
and  altogether  treats  him  with  a  good  deal  of  con- 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      203 

tempt  as  a  rather  pompous,  rather  conventional, 
rather  timid,  and  eminently  legal  sort  of  personage. 
Warburton,  Clarendon's  earliest  commentator,  speaks 
differently:  "In  the  knowledge  of  human  nature 
(the  noblest  qualification  of  the  historian)  this  great 
author  excels  all  the  Greek  and  Latin  historians  put 
together."  This  is  strong  language,  but  the  "His- 
tory" and  "Life"  go  far  to  justify  it.  Personally 
Clarendon  had  his  foibles  (Saint-Simon  even  more 
so),  but  I  think  most  of  us  had  rather  blunder  im- 
mortally with  him  than  be  mortally  accurate  and 
commonplace  with  the  industrious  Gardiner. 

Although  Clarendon  does  his  work  always  with 
conscientious  earnestness,  this  does  not  mean  that 
he  puts  no  humour  into  it.  Like  Saint-Simon,  he 
saw  the  oddities,  the  farcical  contrasts  between  hu- 
man infirmity  and  human  greatness.  Like  Saint- 
Simon,  he  expressed  them  with  an  intense,  incisive 
vigour  which  makes  us  sigh  even  as  we  smile,  or,  if 
you  prefer,  the  other  way  about.  Sometimes,  in- 
deed, his  humour,  like  Pepys's,  is  unintentional,  as 
when  he  speaks  of  "Colonel  d'Ews,  a  young  man  of 
notable  courage  and  vivacity,  who  had  his  leg  shot 
off  by  a  cannon  bullet,  of  which  he  speedily  and 
very  cheerfully  died."  More  often  he  smiles  him- 
self and  lets  the  reader  see  that  he  does,  though 
briefly  and  with  compressed  lip,  as  befits  a  chancellor 
and  one  weighted  with  the  charge  of  state  affairs — as 


204         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"Silent  smiles,  the  gravity  of  mirth," 

a  poet  of  that  day  calls  them.  Now  it  is  a  dry  com- 
ment on  some  solemn  scene,  like  that  on  Blake's  fu- 
neral, recalling  Voltaire's  remark  that  Admiral  Byng 
was  shot  pour  encourager  les  autres:  "He  wanted  no 
pomp  of  funeral  when  he  was  dead,  Cromwell  caus- 
ing him  to  be  brought  up  by  land  to  London  in  all  the 
state  that  could  be ;  and,  according  to  the  method  of 
that  time,  to  encourage  his  officers  to  be  killed,  that 
they  might  be  pompously  buried,  he  was,  with  all  the 
solemnity  possible,  and  at  the  charge  of  the  public, 
interred  in  Harry  the  Seventh's  chapel,  among  the 
monuments  of  the  kings."  Now  it  is  a  witty,  if 
cynical,  epigram,  dissecting  the  heart  or  brain  of 
some  great  personage,  as  of  the  Earl  of  Arundel: 
"He  did  not  love  the  Scots;  he  did  not  love  the 
Puritans,  which  good  qualities  were  allayed  by  an- 
other negative ;  he  did  love  nobody  else." 

In  accordance  with  what  I  have  said  above  as  to 
the  limits  of  word  portraiture,  Clarendon  is  cautious 
in  his  attempt  to  depict  physical  characteristics.  He 
is  much  more  conservative  here  than  Saint-Simon, 
who  has  cruel  words  for  immortalising  ugliness,  as 
in  his  sketch  of  Mezieres :  "Humped  both  before  and 
behind,  his  head  in  his  chest  far  down  below  his 
shoulders,  hurting  you  to  watch  him  breathe;  mere 
bones,  moreover,  and  a  yellow  face  that  looked  like 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      205 

a  frog's."  Clarendon  has  nothing  of  this  kind.  Yet 
he  has  a  rough  vigour  of  his  own  in  dealing  with  the 
earthly  frame  of  even  royal  personages.  Of  James 
the  First's  death  he  says :  He  "fell  into  a  quartan 
ague,  which  meeting  many  humours  in  a  fat,  un- 
wieldy body  of  fifty-four  years,  in  four  or  five  fits 
carried  him  out  of  the  world."  When  soul  is  to  be 
read  by  body,  he  has  subtle  observations  often,  as  in 
the  case  of  Sir  Henry  Vane :  "He  had  an  unusual  as- 
pect, which,  though  it  might  naturally  proceed  from 
both  father  and  mother,  neither  of  which  were  beauti- 
ful persons,  yet  made  men  think  there  was  somewhat 
in  him  of  extraordinary ;  and  his  whole  life  made  good 
that  imagination."  And  equally  so  when  soul  is  not 
to  be  read  by  body,  but  masks  foul  evil  under  bodily 
simplicity:  "He  (Goring)  could  help  himself  with 
all  the  insinuations  of  doubt,  or  fear,  or  shame,  or 
simplicity  in  his  face  that  might  gain  belief  to  a 
greater  degree  than  I  ever  saw  any  man;  and  could 
seem  the  most  confounded  when  he  was  best  pre- 
pared, and  the  most  out  of  countenance  when  he 
was  best  resolved,  and  to  want  words  and  the  habit 
of  speaking  when  they  flowed  from  no  man  with 
greater  power."  Few  writers  have  ever  painted  more 
vividly  the  mighty  influence  of  the  soul  over  the 
body.  Thus  Falkland,  after  the  peace  between  King 
and  Commons  was  at  last  broken,  "grew  into  a  per- 
fect habit  of  uncheerfulness ;  and  he  who  had  been 


206         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

so  exactly  unreserved  and  affable  to  all  men  that  his 
face  and  countenance  was  always  present,  and  va- 
cant to  his  company,  and  held  any  cloudiness  and 
less  pleasantness  of  the  visage  a  kind  of  rudeness 
and  incivility,  became  on  a  sudden  less  communicable 
and  thence  very  sad,  pale,  and  exceedingly  affected 
with  the  spleen." 

If  we  wish  to  compare  two  great  English  word- 
painters  in  this  matter  of  physical  description,  we 
can  take  Clarendon  and  Burnet  on  Lauderdale. 
Clarendon,  like  Rembrandt,  prefers  suggestion,  at- 
mosphere, touches  the  gross,  material  singularity 
with  vigour,  but  with  speed.  "The  fatness  of  his 
tongue  that  ever  filled  his  mouth."  Burnet,  with 
the  flat,  brusque  energy  of  Hals,  dwells  on  ugly  de- 
tail till  it  takes  almost  the  proportion  of  monstrosity : 
"He  made  a  very  ill  appearance;  he  was  very  big; 
his  hair  red,  hanging  oddly  about  him;  his  tongue 
was  too  big  for  his  mouth,  which  made  him  bedew 
all  he  talked  to." 

It  is  by  these  brief  touches,  in  both  the  physical 
and  moral  world,  that  a  great  artist  gets  often  his 
most  lasting  effects,  impressions  that  fix  themselves 
upon  the  memory  and  recur  immortally,  not  only 
in  association  with  that  special  character,  but  with 
others  whom  they  fit  and  illuminate.  Here  no  one 
has  ever  equalled  Tacitus,  whether  in  the  familiar 
bits,  "he  would  have  been  thought  of  all  men  the 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      207 

most  worthy  to  reign  if  he  had  never  reigned";  or 
in  those  less  known:  "He  could  squander,  but  he 
could  not  give";  "he  gave,  but  sparingly,  and  not 
as  one  about  to  die." 

Amplitude,  not  brevity,  is  Clarendon's  distinguish- 
ing characteristic.  Yet  when  he  chooses,  he  can  fling 
one  sentence  at  a  man  that  will  stick  to  him  forever. 
"Wilmot  was  of  a  haughty  and  ambitious  nature, 
of  a  pleasant  wit,  and  an  ill  understanding,  as  never 
considering  above  one  thing  at  once;  but  he  con- 
sidered that  one  thing  so  impatiently  that  he  did  not 
admit  anything  else  to  be  worth  consideration." 
Gowley  "had  an  extraordinary  kindness  for  Mr. 
Hyde  (Clarendon  himself)  till  he  found  he  betook 
himself  to  business  which  he  believed  ought  never 
to  be  preferred  before  his  company."  Selden  "would 
have  hindered  them  (the  Parliament),  if  he  could, 
with  his  own  safety,  to  which  he  was  always  enough 
indulgent."  St.  Albans  "had  that  kindness  for  him- 
self that  he  thought  everybody  did  believe  him." 

The  historian  is  more  at  ease,  however,  when  he 
takes  a  little  wider  sweep.  To  enumerate,  or  even 
to  suggest,  the  elaborate,  splendid  portraits  which 
fill  page  after  page  of  both  the  "Life"  and  the  "His- 
tory" would  be  altogether  impossible.  Will  not  some 
one  some  day  pay  Clarendon  the  deserved  honour  of 
isolating  these  from  the  clogging  context,  as  has 


208         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

been  done  most  successfully  in  the  very  similar  case 
of  Saint-Simon1? 

I  will  at  least  quote  a  single  specimen,  not  perhaps 
one  of  the  most  alluring,  but  finely  representative, 
the  full-length  of  Cottington  taken  after  his  death: 

"He  was  a  very  wise  man,  by  the  great  and  long  expe- 
rience he  had  in  business  of  all  kinds;  and  by  his  natural 
temper,  which  was  not  liable  to  any  transport  of  anger  or 
any  other  passion,  but  could  bear  contradiction  and  even 
reproach  without  being  moved  or  put  out  of  his  way,  for 
he  was  very  steady  in  pursuing  what  he  proposed  to  him- 
self, and  had  a  courage  not  to  be  frighted  or  amazed  with 
any  opposition.  .  .  .  He  lived  very  nobly,  well  served,  and 
attended  in  his  house,  had  a  better  stable  of  horses,  better 
provision  for  sports  (especially  of  hawks,  in  which  he  took 
great  delight),  than  most  of  his  quality,  and  lived  always 
with  great  splendour ;  for  though  he  loved  money  very  well, 
and  did  not  warily  enough  consider  the  circumstances  of 
getting  it,  he  spent  it  well  all  ways  but  in  giving,  which 
he  did  not  affect.  He  was  of  an  excellent  humour,  and  very 
easy  to  live  with ;  and,  under  a  grave  countenance,  covered 
the  most  of  mirth,  and  caused  more  than  any  man  of  the 
most  pleasant  disposition.  He  never  used  anybody  ill,  but 
used  many  very  well  for  whom  he  had  no  regard :  his  great- 
est fault  was  that  he  could  dissemble  and  make  men  believe 
that  he  loved  them  very  well,  when  he  cared  not  for  them. 
He  had  not  very  tender  affections,  nor  bowels  apt  to  yearn 
at  all  objects  which  deserved  compassion:  he  was  heartily 
weary  of  the  world,  and  no  man  was  more  willing  to  die, 
which  is  an  argument  that  he  had  peace  of  conscience.  He 
left  behind  him  a  greater  esteem  of  his  parts,  than  love  to 
his  person." 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      209 

If  it  be  inferred  from  this  and  some  of  my  other 
quotations  that  Clarendon  painted  common  or  un- 
lovely natures  best,  it  may  be  answered  that  he  lived 
amid  the  shock  of  fierce  ambitions  and  cruel  selfish- 
nesses, and  for  contrast  the  reader  may  turn  to  the 
much  longer  and  exquisite  study  of  Falkland  and  to 
some  others  in  the  beginning  of  the  Life. 

It  will  be  asked,  how  far  was  the  painter  influenced 
by  his  own  prejudices  in  painting  both  dark  and 
bright?  Every  man  is  influenced  by  them;  but  he, 
I  think,  not  much  further  than  most  of  us  would  be 
in  writing  of  our  own  contemporaries.  Human 
character  is  an  unstable  thing,  an  ample,  shifting 
thing,  altering  with  every  angle  of  vision,  like  a 
far  mountain  or  a  summer  cloud.  Therefore  no 
study  of  it  is  final.  Only,  that  made  by  a  man  of 
genius  is  rich  in  suggestion  and  permanent  in  beauty. 
When  Clarendon  analyses  Hampden  and  Cromwell, 
we  know  that  we  must  allow  something  for  cropped 
crown  and  steeple-hat.  When  he  says  of  the  Earls 
of  Pembroke  and  Salisbury  that  "they  had  rather 
the  King  and  his  posterity  should  be  destroyed  than 
that  Wilton  should  be  taken  from  the  one  of  them 
or  Hatfield  from  the  other;  the  preservation  of  both 
which  from  any  danger  they  both  believed  to  be 
the  highest  point  of  prudence  and  politic  circumspec- 
tion," we  have  to  remember  that  these  were  Parlia- 
mentary commissioners.  Likewise  the  praise  of 


210         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Laud,  aptly  mingled  with  shrewd  blame,  is  such  as 
befits  the  august  head  of  the  Episcopal  Church.  And 
in  the  summing-up  of  the  whole  matter  of  Charles  I 
we  admire  the  historian's  ingenuity  rather  more  than 
his  judgment:  "If  he  were  not  the  best  King,  if  he 
were  without  some  parts  and  qualities  which  have 
made  some  kings  great  and  happy,  no  other  prince 
was  ever  unhappy  who  was  possessed  of  half  his  vir- 
tues and  endowments  and  so  much  without  any  kind 
of  vice." 

What  I  miss  most  in  Clarendon,  considering  the 
extent  of  his  portraiture,  is  any  elaborate  study  of 
women.  Did  he  respect  them  too  much,  or  fear  them 
too  much,  or  despise  them  too  much?  Of  his  own 
first  wife,  who  died  young,  he  says:  "He  bore  her 
loss  with  so  great  passion  and  confusion  of  spirit  that 
it  shook  all  the  frame  of  his  resolution."  Doubtless 
out  of  compliment  to  her  memory,  he  soon  married 
a  second  "with  whom  he  lived  very  comfortably  in 
the  most  uncomfortable  times  and  very  joyfully  in 
those  times  when  matter  of  joy  was  administered." 
Perhaps  he  thought  the  privacy  of  the  sex  should  be 
considered,  even  in  an  age  when  they  did  not  much 
consider  it  themselves. 

He  certainly  did  not  approve  of  feminine  inter- 
ference in  politics.  "There  being  at  that  time,"  he 
says  of  the  early,  better  days,  "no  ladies  who  had  dis- 
posed themselves  to  intermeddle  in  business";  and, 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      211 

later,  of  the  difficulty  of  managing  the  court  at  Ox- 
ford, "the  town  being  full  of  lords  and  many  per- 
sons of  the  best  quality,  with  very  many  ladies,  who 
were  not  easily  pleased  and  kept  others  from  being 
so."  His  most  bitter  opponent  under  his  first  master 
was  the  Queen,  and  under  his  second  the  royal  mis- 
tress. Yet  of  neither  has  he  left  any  such  finished 
picture  as  of  his  male  friends  and  enemies. 

How  different  is  this  from  the  way  of  Tacitus,  who 
touches  so  many  women,  briefly,  as  in  everything,  but 
masterfully,  like  the  wife  of  Vitellius,  ultra  feminam 
ferox.  How  different  especially  from  Saint-Simon, 
whose  pages  swarm  with  women,  delightful  or 
hideous — the  Duchesse  de  Bourgogne,  the  Duchesse 
du  Maine,  the  Princesse  des  Ursins,  a  hundred  others, 
and,  above  all,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  whom  he  de- 
tested as  Clarendon  did  Lady  Castlemaine,  but  did 
not  therefore  refrain  from  painting  in  every  light 
and  in  every  shadow.  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
"whose  passion  it  was  to  know  everything,  to  meddle 
in  everything,  to  govern  everything."  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  "who  for  kinship's  sake  loved  those  who 
had  repented  much  better  than  those  who  had  noth- 
ing of  which  to  repent." 

Surely  Clarendon's  opportunities  for  studying 
women  were  no  less  than  Saint-Simon's.  He  saw 
two  queens  daily,  and  their  ladies,  high  and  low. 
Doubtless  he  understood  them,  or  thought  he  did. 


212         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

But  he  makes  little  attempt  to  have  us  understand 
them.  Only  rarely  does  he  throw  off  a  careless  sug- 
gestion of  some  minor  figure.  There  is  Mademoiselle 
de  Longueville,  who  "was  looked  upon  as  one  of  the 
greatest  and  richest  marriages  in  France  in  respect 
of  her  fortune;  in  respect  of  her  person  not  at  all 
attractive,  being  a  lady  of  a  very  low  stature,  and 
that  stature  no  degree  straight."  There  is  Lady 
Monk,  "a  woman  of  the  lowest  extraction,  least  wit, 
and  less  beauty,  who,  taking  no  care  for  any  other 
part  of  herself,  had  deposited  her  soul  with  some 
Presbyterian  ministers,  who  disposed  her  to  that  in- 
terest." There  is  the  wife  of  Prince  Rupert,  who, 
"from  the  time  she  had  the  first  intimation  that  the 
King  had  designed  her  husband  for  the  command  of 
the  fleet,  was  all  storm  and  fury;  and  according  to 
the  modesty  of  her  nature  poured  out  a  thousand 
full-mouthed  curses  against  all  who  had  contributed 
to  that  counsel,  .  .  .  but  the  company  she  kept  and 
the  conversation  she  was  accustomed  to  could  not 
propagate  the  reproaches  far;  and  the  poor  General 
felt  them  most,  who  knew  the  Chancellor  to  be  his 
very  faithful  and  firm  friend,  and  that  he  would  not 
be  less  so  because  his  wife  was  no  wiser  than  she 
was  born  to  be." 

Also,  as  compared  with  Saint-Simon,  it  seems  to 
me  that  Clarendon  is  less  successful  in  depicting 
groups  of  figures — that  is,  great  historical  scenes  and 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      213 

critical  situations.  He  has,  indeed,  some  that  are 
very  striking:  the  death  of  Buckingham,  the  arrest 
of  Charles  I,  the  humiliation  of  the  second  Bucking- 
ham, the  death  of  Falkland.  But  he  sometimes  fails 
when  we  expect  him  at  his  best.  For  instance,  the 
trial  of  Charles  is  passed  over  very  lightly.  And  he 
has  nowhere  anything  that  approaches  the  great 
scenes  of  Saint-Simon,  such  as  the  feeding  of  the 
carp  or  the  deaths  of  Monseigneur  and  the  Due  de 
Bourgogne. 

I  end  by  asking  myself  what  was  Clarendon's  mo- 
tive in  his  immense  undertaking.  "If,"  he  says  in 
one  passage,  "the  celebrating  the  memory  of  eminent 
and  extraordinary  persons  and  transmitting  their 
great  virtues  to  posterity  be  one  of  the  principal  ends 
and  duties  of  history.  .  .  ."  No  doubt  he  thought 
it  was  so,  and  laboured  valiantly  for  that  object.  But 
a  great  painter  likes  to  immortalise  himself  as  well 
as  others,  takes  legitimate  delight  in  the  skilful 
touches  of  his  art.  Clarendon  must  have  found  in  his 
own  and  others'  word-painting  the  keen  pleasure 
which  Saint-Simon  displayed  so  naively  on  hearing 
of  a  clever  saying  of  Louis  XIV's :  "When  Marechal 
told  me  this,  I  was  overcome  with  astonishment  at 
so  fine  a  stroke  of  the  brush." 

Also  Clarendon  must  have  had  the  passion  for 
studying  mankind,  though  he  is  conservative,  as  al- 
ways, in  the  expression  of  it :  "I  was  at  that  time  no 


214         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

stranger  to  the  persons  of  most  that  governed  and 
a  diligent  observer  of  their  carriage."  This  is  sober 
compared  even  to  the  frankness  of  Pepys:  "And  I, 
as  I  am  in  all  things  curious,"  let  alone  the  inquisi- 
tive fury  of  Saint-Simon:  "This  fact  is  not  impor- 
tant, but  it  is  amusing.  It  is  especially  significant 
with  a  prince  as  serious  and  as  imposing  as  Louis 
XIV;  and  all  these  little  court  anecdotes  are  well 
worth  while."  "I  skimmed  off  a  few  of  these  details 
on  the  spot."  "For  me,  I  glutted  myself  with  the 
spectacle."  Yet  Clarendon  unquestionably  derived 
immense  pleasure  from  his  rich  opportunities  for 
reading  "bare  soul." 

And  with  all  his  experience  of  what  was  dark  and 
evil  I  do  not  think  his  observation  was  unkindly. 
He  could  be  cruel  with  the  cruel  and  cynical  with 
the  cynical,  but  he  retained  more  of  human  tender- 
ness than  Saint-Simon;  more,  much  more  than  that 
other  masterly  English  painter,  John,  Lord  Hervey. 

Clarendon  had,  indeed,  honestly  tried  to  do  his 
best  for  his  country.  He  had  been  deceived,  be- 
trayed, mocked,  slandered,  ruined,  exiled.  What 
wonder  that  he  summed  up  his  knowledge  of  the 
world  with  a  little  bitterness.  "He  had  originally 
in  his  nature  so  great  a  tenderness  and  love  towards 
all  mankind  that  he  ...  did  really  believe  all  men 
were  such  as  they  appeared  to  be.  ...  These  un- 
avoidable reflections  first  made  him  discern  how  weak 


ENGLISH  PORTRAIT-PAINTER      215 

and  foolish  all  his  imaginations  had  been  and  how 
blind  a  surveyor  he  had  been  of  the  inclinations  and 
affections  of  the  heart  of  man  (and  of)  this  world, 
where  whatsoever  is  good  and  desirable  suddenly 
perisheth  and  nothing  is  lasting  but  the  folly  and 
wickedness  of  the  inhabitants  thereof." 

It  was  on  a  dark  day  in  a  sad,  strange  land  that 
he  wrote  that.  Nevertheless,  his  great  books  show 
everywhere  the  desire  for  what  is  noble  and  of  good 
report ;  nay,  more,  the  real,  lasting  love  of  his  fellow- 
men,  not  only  as  they  might  be,  but  as  they  actually 
*are,  which  remains,  I  think,  the  firmest  secret  of 
human  felicity. 

1911 


IX 
LETTERS  OF  A  ROMAN  GENTLEMAN 


IX 


LETTERS    OF    A    ROMAN    GENTLEMAN 

TO  us  who  dwell  in  settled  peace  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine  the  violent  contrasts  that  made 
up  the  life  of  the  younger  Pliny  and  his 
sudden  trap-doors  under  your  feet,  your  best  friends 
suspected,  your  lightest  words  twisted,  to  Trajan's 
firm,  mild,  and  kindly  government,  must  have  been 
like  stepping  into  heaven  from  hell. 

But  Pliny  was  a  man  of  sunshine  under  any  gov- 
ernment. It  is  most  instructive  to  turn  to  his  pic- 
ture of  his  age  from  that  of  his  sombre  and  indignant 
contemporaries,  Juvenal,  Suetonius,  Tacitus.  Read 
them  and  you  will  think  it  a  wicked  world  indeed. 
The  great  are  idle,  selfish,  cruel,  and  corrupt.  The 
little  are  mean,  sordid,  fawning,  debased,  contempti- 
ble. It  is  not  so  with  Pliny,  who  sees  and  records 
good  in  great  and  little  both.  So  one  might  easily, 
imagine  a  double  and  self-contradicting  likeness  of 
our  world  to-day:  on  this  side,  greed,  indulgence, 
godlessness,  the  rich  getting  richer,  and  the  poor 

219 


220         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

poorer,  one  preying  and  the  other  hating;  on  that 
side,  endless  acts  of  kindness  and  sacrifice,  a  high 
ideal  and  a  lowly  spirit,  love  growing  everywhere, 
even  where  selfishness  would  hardly  let  it  grow.  And 
both  pictures  would  be  true  according  to  the  tem- 
perament of  the  artist  who  drew  them. 

Not  that  Pliny  entirely  overlooks  the  evils  about 
him.  He  recognises  that  the  old  world  was  in  some 
points  better:  "Time  was  when  those  who  wrote  in 
praise  of  their  country  were  rewarded;  but  in  our 
age  this,  like  other  notable  and  lovely  things,  has 
slipped  away."  He  shrinks  from  writing  history, 
"because,  with  men  as  wicked  as  they  are,  much 
more  is  to  be  blamed  than  praised."  Yet,  after  all, 
it  is  wiser  to  smile  than  sigh.  "Why  am  I  angry*?" 
he  says  of  the  triumphant  epitaph  of  the  abominable 
Pallas.  "It  is  better  to  laugh,  so  that  such  creatures 
may  not  think  they  have  achieved  high  fortune,  when 
they  have  made  themselves  ridiculous."  And  he 
cherishes  the  noble  belief  that  the  best  way  to  make 
his  age  worthy  is  passionately  to  wish  it  so :  "I  love 
my  generation,  praying  that  it  may  not  be  effete 
and  sterile  and  longing  with  all  my  heart  that  our 
best  citizens  may  have  something  fine  in  their  houses 
besides  fine  pictures." 

Yet  he  was  a  lawyer  and  so  must  have  known 
what  human  nature  is.  He  had  a  lawyer's  training 
and  prejudices,  that  ingrained  love  of  tradition  and 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    221 

precedent  which  came  naturally  to  Romans,  as  to 
Englishmen.  Success  in  a  profession  so  difficult 
commands  his  admiration,  even  when  it  is  accom- 
panied by  indifferent  honesty,  and  he  cannot  but 
praise  the  zeal  of  the  unprincipled  Regulus  whom  in 
other  respects  he  is  never  weary  of  abusing.  Yet  we 
have  his  own  word  for  it — and  I  believe  him — that 
he  himself  was  a  shining  example  of  uprightness. 

Being  a  lawyer,  he  was  also  an  orator,  as  was 
essential  in  that  age,  however  it  may  be  now.  He 
went  through  all  the  degrees  of  that  elaborate  train- 
ing which  was  considered  necessary  for  a  great 
speaker  in  a  time  when  speech  meant  so  much.  What 
the  formal  oratory  of  Pliny  may  have  been  we  are 
left  to  guess,  except  for  one  peculiarly  artificial  and 
tedious  specimen.  To  us  the  man  is  known  only 
through  his  letters.  Yet  even  these  are  the  letters 
of  an  orator.  That  is,  they  are  not  the  fresh,  simple, 
spontaneous  outpouring  of  one  mind  to  another,  but 
are  arranged,  elaborated  with  a  view  to  literary 
effect,  as  if  the  writer  had  always  a  larger  audience 
in  mind  than  the  person  directly  addressed.  They 
are  too  often  clever  essays  rather  than  natural  corre- 
spondence. And  Pliny's  efforts  in  this  line  are  the 
lawful  progenitors  of  a  host  of  frigid  things  known 
properly  as  elegant  epistles  rather  than  letters:  the 
productions  of  Balzac,  for  instance,  or  Voiture,  or  of 
James  Howell,  or  Pope. 


222         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

After  all,  however,  the  greatest  letter  writers 
probably  wrote  with  some  self-consciousness.  Varied, 
vivacious,  infinitely  human  as  Cicero's  letters  are, 
he  must  have  seen  posterity  out  of  the  corner  of  his 
eye.  I  do  not,  indeed,  suppose  that  Lamb,  even  in 
his  later  years,  for  a  moment  suspected  that  his  care- 
less scribbling  would  be  the  delight  of  English  read- 
ers all  over  the  world.  Or,  perhaps,  did  he?  Cer- 
tainly Cowper  did  not,  nor  Edward  Fitz-Gerald.  But 
Madame  de  Sevigne's  letters  were  read  and  admired 
in  her  lifetime.  And  she  knew  it.  And  could  go 
on  discussing  her  little  domestic  affairs  and  her  soul 
with  as  perfect  ease  as  if  she  were  prattling  to  you 
or  me  by  a  twilight  fire.  Horace  Walpole,  also, 
divined  his  future  public;  and  the  consciousness  sat 
less  lightly  on  him  than  on  the  charming  French  lady 
he  adored  and  imitated. 

Ease,  naturalness,  and  simplicity  are  not  the  char- 
acteristics of  Pliny.  He  confesses  his  methods  of 
procedure  in  his  very  first  sentence :  "You  have  often 
urged  me  to  collect  and  publish  such  letters  as  I  have 
taken  a  little  extra  pains  with."  It  recalls  Horace 
Walpole  at  the  opening  of  his  epistolary  career: 
"You  have  made  me  a  strange  request,  that  I  will 
burn  your  letters.  I  make  you  a  still  stranger  one, 
that  you  will  keep  mine."  Pliny  does  indeed  urge 
that  the  style  of  letters  should  be  simple,  pressus 
sermo  purusque;  but  in  his  case  the  brevity  was 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    223 

always  elegantly  draped  and  the  refinement  that  of 
the  drawing-room.  Mommsen  has  justly  pointed  out 
that  each  letter  is  too  often  a  formal  disquisition 
on  one  subject;  and  Joubert,  whose  exquisite  sense 
of  art  was  never  separated  from  his  sense  of  soul, 
has  judged  the  Roman  letter- writer  with  unusual 
severity:  "The  younger  Pliny  took  pains  with  his 
words.  With  his  thoughts  he  took  no  pains."  Pliny 
himself  inadvertently  admits  much  the  same  thing. 
After  describing  minutely  to  a  scientific  friend  the 
peculiar  behavior  of  a  variable  spring,  he  adds,  "It 
is  your  business  to  examine  the  causes  of  such  a  won- 
derful phenomenon.  My  part  is  simply  to  put  the 
effect  in  words." 

Yet,  after  all,  a  gift  of%  expression  such  as  Pliny 
had  is  no  contemptible  thing.  Much  of  the  best  of 
Shakespeare  consists  in  putting  the  thoughts  of  all 
of  us  into  language  of  enduring  power  and  charm. 
And  Flaubert,  himself  the  most  passionate  and  hu- 
man of  letter  writers,  said,  "II  n'y  a  que  les  lieux 
communs  et  les  pays  connus  pour  avoir  une  intariss- 
able  beaute."  If  Pliny  could  occasionally  descend 
so  low  as  "I  will  make  an  end  of  my  letter  in  order 
that  I  may  at  the  same  time  make  an  end  of  the 
tears  which  my  letter  has  called  forth,"  he  could  also 
turn  phrases  which  must  be  left  untranslated  in  their 
abiding  beauty  and  grace.  "Quod  me  recordantem 
fragilitatis  humantz  miseratio  subit.  Quid  enim  tarn 


224         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

circumcisum,  tarn  breve  quam  hominis  vita  long- 
issima?"  And  he  could  do  much  more  than  turn 
clever  phrases.  He  could  find  subtle  and  apt  terms 
of  literary  criticism,  he  could  often  convey  delicate 
and  tender  emotion,  he  could  describe  gaily,  if  he 
chose,or  if  he  chose  again,  with  profound  dramatic 
effect,  as  in  the  swift  and  telling  narrative  of  the 
ghost  adventure  which  befell  the  philosopher  Atheno- 
dorus. 

In  fact,  a  man  cannot  write  lengthy  letters  for 
many  years  without  telling  us  much  of  value  about 
his  times  and  about  himself.  And  it  is  especially  to 
be  noted  that,  although  Pliny  was  artificial  in  ex- 
pression, he  had  a  simple  soul.  "Pline,  qui  est  un 
naif"  says  Gaston  Boissier,  with  perfect  justice. 
And  in  this  Pliny  is  totally  different  from  Horace 
Walpole,  who  was  born  sophisticated,  with  a  heart 
as  wrinkled  at  twenty  as  his  cheeks  at  seventy-five. 
Walpole  tells  us  exactly  what  he  wishes  to  tell  us 
and  his  veracity  stands  in  no  proportion  to  his  lo- 
quacity. Pliny's  soul  peeps  through  every  fold  of 
the  shimmering  drapery  in  which  he  would  invest  it. 

For  the  study  of  many  peculiar  characteristics  of 
his  age  he  is  of  singular  interest.  For  instance,  he 
gives  a  most  effective  description  of  one  of  those 
practical  philosophers,  who,  in  a  sense,  anticipated 
Christianity  by  doing  revival  work  before  vast 
audiences  with  a  zeal  and  sincerity  that  command 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    225 

our  admiration.  "There  is  nothing  repugnant  in 
his  aspect,  nothing  dismal,  but  a  lofty  gravity.  If 
you  met  him,  you  would  stand  in  awe  of  him,  but 
you  would  not  shrink  away.  His  life  is  as  winning 
as  it  is  holy.  He  attacks  vices,  not  men.  And  does 
not  chastise  sinners,  but  converts  them."  In  a  dif- 
ferent vein  he  depicts  those  assemblies  of  friends  be- 
fore which  the  poets  of  the  day  were  accustomed  to 
read  their  productions.  Bored!  cries  Pliny.  Why 
shouldn't  they  expect  to  be  bored1?  "True  affection 
casteth  out  the  fear  of  boredom,  and  of  what  use 
are  your  friends  anyway  if  they  come  together  only 
for  their  own  amusement'?"  Or  he  renders,  with 
truly  tragic  touch,  the  terrible  pathos  of  a  vestal 
virgin  condemned  by  Domitian  to  be  buried  alive 
for  alleged  unchastity:  "She  was  led  to  her  doom, 
if  not  innocent,  at  least  with  every  aspect  of  inno- 
cence. Even  when  she  was  stepping  down  into  the 
vault,  her  garment  caught,  and  she  turned  and  gath- 
ered it  up  about  her:  and  when  the  executioner 
offered  her  his  hand,  she  drew  back,  as  if  to  keep 
her  chaste  body  still  pure  from  the  defiling  touch." 
Nor  are  Pliny's  letters  less  fruitfifl  and  impressive 
in  anecdotes  and  sketches  of  definite  historical  per- 
sonages than  in  the  painting  of  manners  in  general. 
Sometimes  he  adds  to  the  list  of  terse,  pregnant  say- 
ings which  seem  so  characteristically  Latin  and  Ro- 
man. Every  one  knows  that  figure  of  antique  splen- 


226         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

dour,  Arria,  who  by  planting  the  knife  in  her  own 
breast  encouraged  her  husband  to  seek  freedom,  with 
the  words  "Paete,  non  dolet"  Pliny  thinks  it  an 
injustice  that  other  sayings  of  hers  as  noble  should 
not  also  be  recorded  in  history — and  he  records  them. 
Thus  to  the  wife  of  Scribonianus  she  cries:  "Do  you 
think  I  will  listen  to  you,  when  your  husband  was 
killed  in  your  arms  and  you  live1?" 

More  tranquil  pictures  Pliny  has  also,  of  spirits 
lofty  as  Arria's,  but  fruitfully  occupied  with  service 
to  their  country,  or  after  years  of  such  service  still 
profitably  busying  a  serene  old  age.  It  is  refreshing 
enough  to  pass  from  the  horrors  of  Tacitus  to  the 
dignified  quiet  of  Spurinna,  who  lived  at  peace 
among  his  friends  and  servants,  now  talking  sagely 
of  great  deeds  done,  now  reading  or  writing  of  the 
deeds  of  others,  varying  these  intellectual  pursuits 
with  wholesome  exercise  to  keep  the  temperate  body 
fresh  and  sound.  "Thus,  though  he  is  past  his  sev- 
enty-seventh year,  his  sight  and  hearing  are  perfect, 
his  body  agile  and  alert,  and  the  only  trace  of  old 
age  about  him  is  his  wisdom.  Such  a  life  is  the 
object  of  my  wish  and  prayer,  and  I  shall  enter  upon 
it  whenever  the  passage  of  years  shall  permit  me 
to  think  of  retirement.  Meanwhile,  I  am  overcome 
with  a  thousand  distractions,  amid  which  I  comfort 
myself  with  the  example  of  this  same  Spurinna." 

Another  noble  figure  delineated  by  Pliny  is  that 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    227 

of  his  uncle  and  parent  by  adoption,  Pliny  the  elder. 
This  distinguished  personage,  besides  being  an  active 
and  energetic  citizen,  was  an  indefatigable  student 
and  writer.  He  wrote  extensive  histories,  of  which 
nothing  now  survives.  He  produced  also  an  enor- 
mous compilation  of  myth,  tradition,  fable,  and  ob- 
servation, which,  under  the  name  of  natural  history, 
fed  the  curiosity  of  more  than  a  thousand  years  with 
things  that  never  happened.  It  may,  however,  be 
justly  said  of  him  that  "nothing  in  his  life  became 
him  like  the  leaving  of  it."  For  he  perished  in  a 
thoroughly  scientific  attempt  to  study  the  great  erup- 
tion that  destroyed  Pompeii.  After  perpetuating 
forty  books  of  lies,  he  died  of  the  desire  to  discover 
the  truth.  It  was  a  creditable  exit,  which  the  younger 
Pliny  has  described  in  a  way  to  make  it  more  credita- 
ble; for  the  nobility  of  his  uncle's  scientific  spirit 
is  entirely  surpassed  by  his  tranquil  acceptance  of  a 
terrible  situation  and  his  efforts  to  impart  his  own 
tranquillity  to  others.  As  soon  as  he  appreciated 
the  peril  and  that  escape  was  unlikely,  he  began  to 
cheer  those  about  him,  to  comfort  them,  to  relieve 
their  terrors  by  gaiety  or  the  aspect  of  gaiety.  As 
the  long  hours  dragged  on,  he  beguiled  despair  by 
making  notes.  Then,  in  the  murky  and  intolerable 
darkness  and  horror,  he  actually  slept.  Balked  in 
his  final  attempt  to  escape  by  his  unwieldy  stature 
and  scant  breath,  and  overcome  by  the  smoke  and 


228         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ashes,  he  was  found  afterwards,  "his  body  entire, 
unharmed,  and  clothed  as  when  he  had  left  home; 
his  aspect  rather  that  of  the  sleeping  than  of  the 
dead." 

The  man  Pliny  himself  is,  however,  the  most  in- 
teresting thing  in  his  letters;  and  though  he  endeav- 
oured to  show  himself  only  draped,  togaed,  and  in  a 
senatorial  attitude,  his  inmost  anatomy  is  visible 
enough,  if  one  cares  to  look  for  it.  We  can  see  him, 
if  we  choose,  in  the  rush  of  his  daily  business,  hurry- 
ing about  the  forum,  pleading  a  cause,  attending  to 
a  public  duty,  arranging  a  little  matter  for  a  friend 
or  a  great  charity  for  a  community,  administering  a 
far  province,  with  theatres,  and  fire  departments,  and 
aqueducts,  and  obstinate  Christians  to  be  brought  to 
submission  or  fed  to  the  wild  beasts. 

We  can  see  him,  much  more  attractively,  in  the 
home  life  on  his  great  country  estates,  which  the 
Romans,  like  the  English,  loved  to  cherish,  keeping 
their  roots  firm  in  the  soil.  Pliny  himself  writes  to 
a  friend  of  country  pleasures :  "I  will  not  say  I  envy 
you ;  but  it  torments  me  to  think  that  I  cannot  have 
what  I  long  for  as  the  fevered  long  to  bathe  in  cool- 
ing springs.  Shall  I  never  break  these  hampering 
bonds,  since  I  cannot  loose  them^" 

The  Romans,  indeed,  had  not  the  modern  romantic 
passion  for  nature.  Pliny  was  no  Wordsworth  to 
adore  a  daffodil  or  apostrophise  a  linnet.  Such  do- 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    229 

ings  would  have  seemed  to  him  as  unworthy  as  to 
Socrates.  But  he  loved  the  country  air,  and  the 
wide  sky,  a  noble  prospect,  sparkling  sea,  and  vine- 
clad  hills.  "For  a  scholar,"  as  he  says  of  one  of 
his  friends,  "a  brief  acreage  suffices,  to  tread  one 
well-worn  path,  to  know  every  vine  and  count  every 
fruit-tree."  But  he  himself  is  tempted  into  larger 
purchasing:  "Change  of  soil  and  sky,  broad  peregri- 
nation through  one's  own  possessions,  have  an  infinite 
charm."  It  reminds  one  of  old  Burton:  "For  pere- 
grination hath  such  an  infinite  and  sweet  variety  that 
some  call  him  unhappy  who  never  travelled,  but 
beholdeth  from  his  cradle  to  his  old  age  the  same, 
still,  still  the  same." 

And  so  Pliny  gives  us  a  minute  and  loving  picture 
of  his  country  homes:  of  Como,  where  he  was  born 
and  which  he  loved  with  the  tenderness  of  Cowper, — 

Scenes  that  soothed 

And  charmed  me  young,  no  longer  young  I  find 
Still  soothing  and  of  power  to  charm  me  still; 

of  his  elaborate  and  splendid  villas  in  Tuscany  and 
at  Laurentum,  which  he  describes  with  a  detail  of 
singular  interest  to  the  antiquarian:  halls,  baths, 
libraries,  porticoes,  sitting-rooms  for  the  day  and 
for  the  night,  for  company,  for  privacy;  chambers 
looking  out  upon  the  wide  prospect,  sea  or  stars, 
chambers  hidden  and  secluded,  "where  no  noise  of 


230         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

busy  people  comes,  no  murmur  of  the  waves,  no 
tumult  of  the  storm,  nor  glare  of  lightning,  nay,  if 
you  wish,  not  even  the  light  of  day,  when  the  shut- 
ters are  closed";  trim  gardens,  with  flowers,  and 
fruit,  and  shade;  and  over  the  whole  dwelling  glad- 
some vines,  creeping  from  roof  to  roof  up  to  the 
highest  peak  of  all.  They  knew  what  luxury  was, 
these  wealthy  Romans,  and  Pliny  was  by  no  means 
one  of  the  wealthiest. 

We  hear  not  only  of  Pliny's  abodes,  but  of  his 
friends,  and  he  was  a  man  to  have  .many  of  them. 
The  most  august  was  the  Emperor  Trajan  himself, 
and  a  collection  of  letters  survives,  exchanged  be- 
tween the  two  when  Pliny  was  governor  of  the 
provinces  of  Bithynia  and  Pontica.  The  most  in- 
teresting of  these  deal  with  the  treatment  of  the 
Christians  and  show  the  attitude  of  a  humane  and 
kindly  Roman  gentleman  towards  those  who,  he  felt, 
must  be  punished,  not  because  they  held  outlandish 
beliefs,  but  because  they  refused  to  recognise  the 
supreme  control  of  the  civil  authority. 

Trajan's  letters  were  brief,  but  courteous  and  con- 
siderate; Pliny's,  on  the  whole,  manly  and  inde- 
pendent. The  same  thing  may  perhaps  be  said  of 
the  general  tone  of  the  "Panegyric  on  Trajan," 
Pliny's  one  remaining  piece  of  oratory.  Yet  the 
adulation  unavoidable  in  such  a  performance  will 
hardly  suit  an  American  ear,  however  it  might  pass 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    231 

in  Berlin  or  St.  Petersburg.  "A  religious  nation, 
whose  piety  has  always  merited  the  favour  of  the 
immortal  gods,  can  ask  nothing  further  to  perfect 
its  happiness  than  that  the  gods  themselves  should 
imitate  Caesar."  A  little  strong,  is  it  not?  And 
what  interests  me  most  of  all  is  how  a  person  of 
Trajan's  native  common  sense  and  practical  dispo- 
sition, not  born  to  this  sort  of  thing,  but  having 
grown  up  a  common  man  among  other  men,  could 
sit  by  and  listen  to  it?  Was  he  nauseated ?  Was  he 
simply  bored,  enormously1?  Is  it  possible  that  he 
should  have  enjoyed  it?  Did  Napoleon? 

Pliny  had  hosts  of  other  friends,  not  draped  in 
purple.  Some  of  them,  many  of  them,  were  the 
first  men  of  the  age,  whose  names  echo  to  us  now  in 
a  way  which  would  seem  to  make  the  mere  distinc- 
tion of  their  friendship  glory  enough.  Suetonius, 
Martial — Martial  immortalises  Pliny's  hospitality 
and  his  friend  is  duly  grateful :  "Is  it  not  fitting  that 
I  should  mourn  him  who  wrote  about  me  thus?  He 
gave  me  all  he  had  to  give.  If  he  had  had  more, 
he  would  have  given  it.  And  what  can  a  man  give 
more  than  praise  and  glory  and  eternity?"  Tacitus? 
Tacitus  sends  his  writings  for  Pliny's  revision. 
Think  of  it !  Revising  Tacitus !  And  Pliny  does  it. 
"I  have  noted  with  the  utmost  care  what  I  think 
should  be  altered,  what  omitted."  What,  I  wonder? 
And  Pliny  sends  his  own  works  for  Tacitus's  revision 


232         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

in  return — which  strikes  us  as  a  matter  of  less  im- 
portance. And  he  exults  in  the  thought  that  they 
two  will  go  down  the  ages  together:  "What  a  delight 
that  posterity,  if  it  takes  heed  of  us  at  all,  will  record 
everywhere  that  we  lived  together  in  simple  faith 
and  brotherly  love!  A  rare  and  notable  thing  in- 
deed that  two  men  of  nearly  equal  age  and  public 
position,  and  not  unknown  in  letters  (I  am  forced 
to  speak  slightly  of  you  also  since  I  am  speaking  of 
myself)  should  have  cherished  and  fostered  one  an- 
other's studies.".  How  could  he  know  that  in  two 
thousand  years  Tacitus  would  be  all  and  he  nothing? 

Lesser  friends  he  advises  also,  as  to  their  verses, 
as  to  their  prose,  as  to  commoner  matters  still.  To 
one  in  sickness  he  sends  excellent  counsel,  with  an 
elaborate  account  of  his  own  good  health  and  how 
he  got  it,  which  I  think  can  hardly  have  been  very 
gratifying  to  the  sufferer,  any  more  than  Lamb's 
maliciously  delightful  epistle  to  Henry  Crabbe 
Robinson  under  similar  circumstances. 

And  always  Pliny  is  ready  to  praise  his  friends, 
high  and  low,  as  if  they  were  the  emperor  himself. 
It  reminds  one  sometimes  of  Lepidus's  ecstasies :  His 
dear  Qesar;  but  then  his  dear  Antony;  Antony,  the 
man  of  men;  but  Csesar  is  godlike.  Pliny  was  ridi- 
culed, even  in  his  own  day,  for  these  excesses,  and 
admits  it,  and  defends  himself.  "I  confess  the  fault, 
I  am  proud  of  it.  ...  Supposing  they  are  not 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    233 

what  I  think  them.  The  more  fortunate  I,  since  to 
me  they  seem  so  ...  never  will  you  persuade 
me  that  I  can  love  my  friends  too  much."  And  he 
lauds  the  verses  of  one,  the  banquets  of  another,  the 
children  of  another,  till  we  think  we  are  living  in  a 
different  and  a  better  world.  "He  showed  me  some 
letters  the  other  day  and  said  they  were  his  wife's. 
I  thought  I  was  reading  Plautus  or  Terence  dissolved 
in  prose.  Whether  they  are  his  wife's,  as  he  affirms, 
or  his  own,  as  he  denies,  they  do  equal  credit  to  the 
man  who  can  turn  out  such  letters  or  such  a  wife." 
It  is  true  that  in  these  matters  there  is  a  certain  tit- 
f or-tatishness ;  and  if  Pliny  praises,  he  is  not  averse 
to  payment  in  kind.  But  under  all  the  manner  and 
all  the  artificial  grace,  it  is,  I  think,  impossible  not 
to  recognise  genuine  love  and  tenderness:  "You 
know  the  weakness  of  my  heart  in  its  affections,  you 
know  my  anxious  fears;  and  you  will  not  be  sur- 
prised if  I  fear  most  where  I  hope  most." 

One  charming  phase  of  Pliny's  friendships  is  his 
correspondence  with  illustrious  ladies  who  represent 
the  very  best  of  Roman  dignity  and  Roman  virtue. 
"There  are,"  says  Professor  Dill,  "youths  and 
maidens  in  the  portrait  gallery  of  Pliny  whose  inno- 
cence was  guarded  by  good  women  as  pure  and  strong 
as  those  matrons  who  nursed  the  stern,  unbending 
soldiers  of  the  Sabine  wars."  To  Calvina  he  writes 
on  matters  of  business,  not  omitting  to  indicate  his 


234         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

own  probity  as  well  as  hers.  He  advises  another 
friend  as  to  the  choice  of  a  tutor  for  her  son :  "From 
this  person  your  son  will  learn  nothing  that  will  not 
profit  him,  nothing  that  would  be  better  unlearned, 
and  will  be  reminded  no  less  often  than  by  you  or  me 
what  ideals  he  must  live  up  to,  what  great  names 
are  his  to  sustain."  One  should  compare  also  the 
touching  patience  and  fortitude  of  a  young  girl's 
death:  "She  did  what  the  doctors  told  her,  she  com- 
forted her  father  and  sister,  she  kept  up  her  courage 
even  when  overcome  by  weakness.  And  this  endured 
to  the  end  and  was  not  shaken  by  the  length  of  her 
illness  or  the  fear  of  death."  Other  specimens  of 
womanhood  there  are,  to  be  sure,  showing  more  the 
influence  of  prevalent  luxury,  extravagance,  and 
idleness,  as  the  odd  case  of  that  very  gay  old  lady 
who  used  the  strictest  possible  care  in  the  education 
of  her  grandson,  but  did  not  consider  it  necessary 
to  apply  the  same  methods  to  herself.  "He  lived 
in  the  house  of  his  luxurious  grandmother  after  the 
severest,  but  also  the  most  submissive  fashion.  She 
had  a  fancy  for  actors  and  ran  after  them  rather 
more  than  became  a  lady  of  her  rank.  But  Quadra- 
tus  never  saw  one,  on  the  stage  or  at  home;  nor  did 
she  wish  him  to.  She  told  me  once,  when  she  was 
commending  her  grandson's  studiousness,  that  for 
herself,  to  get  rid  of  her  wretched  feminine  leisure, 
she  liked  to  take  a  hand  in  a  game  or  see  a  play,  but 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    235 

when  anything  of  the  sort  was  going  on,  she  bade 
the  boy  go  to  his  books,  quite  as  much,  I  think,  out 
of  regard  for  his  innocence  as  for  his  learning.  You 
will  be  astonished  at  this.  So  was  I." 

As  to  Pliny's  treatment  of  his  slaves  we  have  no 
evidence  but  his  own,  which  is  remarkably  favour- 
able. I  am  inclined  to  trust  it,  however,  in  default  of 
better.  There  is,  indeed,  a  curious  sentence  in  the 
"Panegyric,"  showing  how  slavery  could  dull  and 
harden  the  finer  feelings  of  the  kindly  and  humane. 
Trajan  is  extolled  because  he  did  not  provide  im- 
moral and  debasing  theatrical  performances  but  in- 
stead contests  "which  inspired  the  glorious  contempt 
of  wounds  and  death  by  showing  even  in  slaves  and 
criminals  the  ardour  for  praise  and  the  thirst  for  vic- 
tory." But  numerous  passages  in  the  letters  indicate 
a  consistent  gentleness  of  treatment,  with  a  desire 
to  secure  the  welfare  of  dependents,  which  makes  an 
agreeable  contrast  to  much  that  we  read  of  a  very 
different  character  in  other  authors.  Thus  Pliny  ex- 
plains to  a  friend  that  he  furnished  his  upper  servants 
with  the  same  wine  that  he  drinks  himself.  "Must 
be  rather  expensive,"  says  the  friend.  "No,"  says 
Pliny.  "They  do  not  drink  what  I  do.  I  drink  what 
they  do."  His  favourite  reader  falls  ill  with  a  hemor- 
rhage. "How  hard  it  would  be  for  him,  what  a 
loss  for  me,  if  he  to  whom  all  my  studies  owe  their 
charm  should  become  unfit  for  study!  Who  would 


236         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

read  my  work  so  well,  would  cherish  it  so  much*? 
Whose  voice  would  caress  my  ear  like  his"?  But  I 
have  hopes  that  Providence  will  spare  him."  He 
bewails  an  excessive  mortality  among  his  slaves,  but 
he  has  at  least  the  comfort  of  having  treated  them 
kindly:  "Two  consolations  I  have,  not  indeed  ade- 
quate, but  consolations:  one,  that  I  allow  them  to 
obtain  their  freedom  easily;  for  those  seem  not  to 
die  too  young  who  have  got  free;  the  other,  that  I 
allow  even  the  slaves  to  make  a  kind  of  will  and 
that  I  execute  it  as  such.  They  devise  and  enjoin 
as  they  wish;  and  I  carry  out  their  wishes.  They 
divide,  bestow,  and  bequeath,  provided  it  is  confined 
to  my  own  household.  For  the  household  is,  as  it 
were,  the  country  and  commonwealth  of  slaves." 

As  regards  immediate  family,  Pliny  had  no  chil- 
dren, though  he  was  twice  married.  To  his  second 
wife,  Calpurnia,  he  writes  charming  letters,  rather 
literary  perhaps  in  expression,  but  obviously  inspired 
by  genuine  feeling.  He  is  glad  to  hear  that  she 
misses  him,  glad  that  she  reads  his  verses  in  his  ab- 
sence. He  reads  her  letters  over  and  over,  thinks  of 
her  constantly,  gives  every  leisure  moment  to  the 
thought  of  her,  and  is  glad  to  be  busy  because  other- 
wise he  longs  for  her  so  much.  But  the  cream  of 
the  correspondence  in  this  connection  is  the  letter 
describing  Calpurnia's  excellences  to  her  affectionate 
aunt.  No  page  of  Pepys  has  fuller  measure  of 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    237 

human  nature  pressed  down  and  running  over:  the 
immense,  complacent  egotism  of  the  husband  gaug- 
ing his  wife's  perfection  by  her  devotion,  the  ex- 
quisite tact  of  the  wife,  playing  with  deft  fingers 
upon  that  egotism  as  upon  a  many-stopped  pipe, 
guided  much  by  love,  no  doubt,  but  also  by  a  fine 
appreciation  of  what  was  for  her  own  comfort  and 
matrimonial  ease.  "She  has  the  shrewdest  common 
sense,  the  most  careful  housewifery.  She  loves  me 
as  a  good  wife  should.  Moreover,  her  love  for  me 
has  inspired  her  with  a  love  for  literature.  She  has 
all  my  works,  reads  them  over  and  over,  even  learns 
them  by  heart.  How  anxious  she  is  when  I  am  go- 
ing to  speak,  how  delighted  when  I  have  spoken 
well.  She  keeps  messengers  to  let  her  know  how  I 
am  taking,  what  applause  I  get,  what  the  verdict  is. 
When  I  give  a  reading,  she  sits  near  me,  discreetly 
veiled,  and  drinks  in  the  praise  of  me  with  avid 
ears.  She  even  sings  my  verses  and  sets  them  to 
the  cither  (Oh,  Mrs.  Pepys,  oh,  Mrs.  Pepys!),  not 
taught  by  art  but  love,  which  is  the  best  of  masters. 
For  these  reasons  I  feel  sure  that  we  shall  be  hap- 
pier and  happier  together  as  long  as  we  live.  For 
she  does  not  love  my  youth  or  my  good  looks,  which 
fail  and  fade,  but  my  glory,  as  behooves  one  brought 
up  at  your  hands  and  taught  by  your  precepts,  who, 
in  your  dwelling,  learned  nothing  but  what  was  holy 


238         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

and  of  good  report,  who  even  grew  to  love  me  under 
your  tutoring." 

From  which  I  conclude  that  Calpurnia,  senior,  was 
a  mistress  hand  in  the  tutoring  of  wives.  Do  you 
remember  Sir  Toby's  eulogy  of  Maria*?  "She's  a 
beagle,  true  bred;  and  one  that  adores  me."  But 
Sir  Toby  winked,  and  Pliny  never  winks. 

By  this  time  it  must  be  evident  that  our  epistolary 
friend  had  a  good  share  of  amiable  vanity.  If  it 
were  not  so  amiable,  it  would  certainly  be  mon- 
strous. And  remembering  Cicero,  I  ask  myself  if 
many  of  these  world-subduing  Romans  had  a  microbe 
of  self-admiration,  which  would  stare  us  in  the  face, 
if  we  had  their  letters.  Then  I  think  of  the  ex- 
quisite modesty  of  Virgil,  of  the  fine  irony  of  Horace, 
of  the  godlike  intellect  of  Csesar,  which  penetrated 
himself  and  every  one  else. 

But  Pliny  had  the  microbe,  if  any  one  ever  had. 
And  the  art  of  ingenious — and  ever  entertaining — 
self-laudation  could  not  be  carried  further.  He  sends 
his  works  to  his  friends  and  asks  criticism,  with  that 
anxious  modesty  which  we  know  so  well.  Be  hon- 
est. Be  sincere.  Tell  me  what  you  really  think.  "I 
ask  it  of  your  confiding  simplicity,  tell  me  about  my 
book  just  what  you  would  tell  any  one  else."  But 
woe  to  the  simple  friend  who  accepts  such  an  in- 
vitation ! 

Another  ingenious  device  is  to  repeat  to  one  friend 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    239 

the  eulogies  of  another.  "They  say  everybody  is 
reading  my  book,  though  it  came  out  so  long  ago; 
that  is,  unless  the  publishers  are  fooling  me."  "I 
was  very  much  gratified  about  my  reading.  I  asked 
my  friends  to  come  if  it  was  convenient  and  they 
had  nothing  else  to  do.  (In  Rome  there  is  always 
something  else  to  do  and  it  is  never  convenient.) 
But  they  came  for  two  days  running,  and  when  my 
modesty  was  ready  to  make  an  end,  they  insisted 
on  having  a  third  day." 

In  his  omnivorous  appetite  for  commendations, 
he  admits  that  he  is  not  too  discriminating  and  even 
maintains  that  others  are  like  him.  "All  who  care 
for  fame  and  glory  enjoy  praise  even  when  it  comes 
from  their  inferiors.  .  .  .  Indeed,  I  don't  know  why 
it  is,  but  men  prefer  their  glory  broad  rather  than 
lofty." 

Written  eulogy  that  comes  in  the  cool  quiet  of  the 
study  is  agreeable;  but  this  is  nothing  compared  to 
the  success  of  the  orator,  the  fury  of  popular  ap- 
plause, the  enthusiasm  of  the  crowd  that  hangs  upon 
your  words,  the  handshakings  and  congratulations 
that  come  after.  "My  turn  arrives.  I  rise  .  .  .  O 
wonderful !  Those  who  were  but  now  against  me 
receive  every  word  with  attention  and  applause.  I 
conclude.  Veiento  tries  to  reply.  Nobody  will 
listen.  .  .  .  There  was  hardly  a  man  in  the  Senate 
who  did  not  embrace  me,  did  not  kiss  me,  did  not 


240         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

overwhelm  me  with  praise."  It  recalls — afar  off — 
that  most  wonderful  scene  of  Mr.  Pepys's  great 
speech  and  the  climax  of  commendations  which  agi- 
tated his  spirit  with  delight :  "From  thence  I  went 
to  Westminster  Hall,  where  I  met  Mr.  G.  Montagu, 
who  came  to  me  and  kissed  me,  and  told  me  that 
he  had  often  heretofore  kissed  my  hands,  but  now 
he  would  kiss  my  lips:  protesting  that  I  was  an- 
other Cicero,  and  said  all  the  world  said  the  same 
of  me.  Mr.  Ashburnham,  and  every  creature  I  met 
there  of  the  Parliament,  or  that  knew  anything  of 
the  Parliament's  actings,  did  salute  me  with  this 
honour: — Mr.  Godolphin: — Mr.  Sands,  who  swore 
he  would  go  twenty  miles,  at  any  time,  to  hear  the  like 
again,  and  that  he  never  saw  so  many  sit  four  hours 
together  to  hear  any  man  in  his  life,  as  there  did 
to  hear  me ;  Mr.  Chichly, — Sir  John  Duncomb, — and 
everybody  do  say  that  the  kingdom  will  ring  of  my 
abilities,  and  that  I  have  done  myself  right  for  my 
whole  life:  and  so  Captain  Cocke,  and  others  of 
my  friends,  say  that  no  man  had  ever  such  an  op- 
portunity of  making  his  abilities  known;  and,  that 
I  may  cite  all  at  once,  Mr.  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower 
did  tell  me  that  Mr.  Vaughan  did  protest  to  him, 
and  in  his  hearing  it,  said  so  to  the  Duke  of  Alber- 
marle,  and  afterwards  to  W.  Coventry,  that  he  had 
sat  twenty-six  years  in  Parliament  and  never  heard 
such  a  speech  there  before :  for  which  the  Lord  God 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    241 

make  me  thankful !  and  that  I  may  make  use  of  it, 
not  to  pride  and  vainglory,  but  that,  now  I  have 
this  esteem,  I  may  do  nothing  that  may  lessen  it!" 

Delightful  as  this  contemporary  approbation  is, 
however,  Pliny  is  insatiably  looking  forward.  Pos- 
terity, years  upon  years  upon  years,  must  honour  him, 
or  he  will  not  be  satisfied:  "Whether  they  are  right 
or  wrong  in  praising  me  I  do  not  know ;  but  my  one 
prayer  is  that  posterity  may  be  right  or  wrong  in 
the  same  way."  And,  with  good  critical  tact,  he 
begs  for  a  scrap  of  the  immortality  which  Tacitus 
can  bestow :  "I  know  I  am  right  in  predicting  that 
your  history  will  be  immortal.  For  that  reason  I 
frankly  confess  that  I  should  be  glad  to  be  men- 
tioned in  it."  Alas,  he  may  have  been,  but  not 
in  that  portion  that  has  endured. 

We  smile  at  this  vanity  of  Pliny's.  Who  could 
help  it?  But,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  amiable,  and, 
as  has  been  long  ago  remarked,  vanity  is  often  as- 
sociated with  excellent  qualities.  The  fine,  the  really 
beautiful  expressions  of  moral,  almost  Christian  feel- 
ing, which  occur  in  the  letters,  are  not  merely  ex- 
pressions; and  when  we  read,  "I  call  him  most  per- 
fect who  himself  forgives  others  as  if  he  were  daily 
liable  to  fall  and  refrains  from  falling  as  if  there 
were  no  forgiveness,"  we  are  safe  in  assuming  that 
the  writer  practised  his  own  precept,  as  far  as  frail 
human  nature  may.  He  does,  indeed,  beg  pardon 


242         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

for  writing  verses  that  are  too  gamesome;  but  prob- 
ably it  was  because  he  thought,  with  others  since, 
that  in  poetry  to  be  gamesome  was  to  be  great;  and 
I  imagine  that  his  verses  were  no  more  like  the 
verses  of  Martial  than  the  letters  of  Martial  would 
have  been  like  the  letters  of  Pliny. 

Kindly  he  certainly  was  and  practically  beneficent, 
though  even  here  his  failing  haunts  him  and  he  in- 
forms us  of  his  charities  in  ample  phraseology,  at 
the  same  time  remarking  that  "those  who  adorn  their 
good  deeds  with  fine  words  seem  not  to  be  telling 
because  they  have  done,  but  to  have  done  in  order 
that  they  might  be  telling."  Telling  or  not,  how- 
ever, he  did  the  deeds,  built  temples,  founded  schools, 
had  a  friendly  word  for  trouble  and  an  open  hand 
for  suffering,  in  short,  lived  the  life  of  a  useful  citi- 
zen and  an  honourable  gentleman,  if  not,  as  he 
would  have  wished,  that  of  a  great  poet  and  an  im- 
mortal genius. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  also,  that  Pliny's  essential  vir- 
tue does  not  proceed  from  any  especially  religious 
motive,  as  does,  for  instance,  that  of  the  Athenian 
gentleman  who  in  some  ways  resembles  him,  Xeno- 
phon.  With  Xenophon  the  gods  are  daily,  nightly 
present.  He  considers  them  in  his  getting  up  and 
in  his  lying  down.  To  do  wrong  is  to  offend  them 
and  risk  their  anger.  To  do  right  is  always  pleas- 
ing and  acceptable  to  them.  Now  Pliny  is  by  no 


LETTERS— ROMAN  GENTLEMAN    243 

means  directly  irreligious.  Indeed,  a  strong  tinc- 
ture of  superstition  appears  in  him,  as  in  so  many 
of  his  contemporaries, — witness  the  excellent  ghost 
story  that  he  tells  with  positive  assurance  as  to  the 
facts  and  much  credulity  as  to  the  causes.  But 
scepticism  was  too  deeply  rooted  in  a  Roman  of  that 
-day  for  the  divine  to  be  often  recognised  as  a  spring 
of  daily  action,  and  Pliny  rarely,  if  ever,  refers  to 
it  as  such.  His  goodness,  his  kindliness,  are  native, 
instinctive,  spring  from  pure  human  love  and  char- 
ity, and  are  surely  none  the  less  creditable  to  him 
on  that  account. 

And  thus,  as  we  read  him  here  in  far-off  America, 
he  has  an  undying  glory,  as  undying  glories  go.  Only 
it  is  not  for  his  verses,  but  for  his  virtues.  Would 
that  have  satisfied  him?  I  fear  not.  Long  since 
it  was  remarked  that  we  had  rather  be  praised  for 
the  head  than  for  the  heart.  And  yet  it  is  some- 
thing to  be  remembered  for  two  thousand  years  as 
one  who  was  a  little  better  than  the  average. 

1912 


X 

OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS 


X 


OVID    AMONG    THE    GOTHS 

THE  haphazard  pun  by  which  Touchstone 
compares  himself  among  his  goats  to  the 
honest  poet  Ovid  among  the  Goths  has  a 
double  infelicity,  because  Ovid  was  not  among  the 
Goths  and  because  he  is  ill-described  by  "honest" 
in  the  parliamentary  sense  in  which  Touchstone  em- 
ploys the  word*  Nevertheless,  the  familiar  refer- 
ence will  serve  to  introduce  the  most  pitiable  figure 
in  all  classic  literature,  who  has  made  himself  in- 
teresting by  the  minute,  if  monotonous,  description 
of  his  woes.  Cano  tristia  tristis.  My  song  is  dismal 
because  I  am.  As  he  had  sung  lovers  without  lov- 
ing, gods  without  believing,  and  heroes,  though  per- 
fectly incapable  of  heroism,  some  of  us  prefer  his 
dismal  strains  to  anything  else  he  wrote. 

Boissier,  with  unusual  exaggeration,  declares  his 

t  CJC7  J 

belief  that  Ovid,  before  his  exile,  was  the  happiest 
man  that  ever  existed.  This  would  be  a  rash  as- 
sertion, even  about  men  whom  we  know  far  better. 
But  it  is  clear  that  Ovid's  early  life  must  have  been 
a  peculiarly  fortunate  one.  Born  just  at  the  be- 

247 


248         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ginning  of  the  Augustan  age,  he  had  none  of  the 
personal  recollection  of  preceding  horrors  which 
gave  gravity  to  Virgil  and  Horace;  yet  he  knew  by 
hearsay  enough  to  impart  a  sharper  zest  to  the  pleas- 
ures of  peace  and  luxury  and  ease.  Placed  in  a  com- 
fortable social  position  and  financially  well-to-do,  he 
had  friends  in  the  literary  and  in  the  fashionable 
sets  both.  At  that  time  the  whole  Roman  world 
was  mad  for  pleasure.  The  men  were  excluded 
from  politics  and  had  nothing  to  do  but  run  after 
the  women.  The  women  were  restless,  idle,  and 
eager  for  the  admiration  of  the  men.  Banquets,  the- 
atres, shows,  public  readings — every  diversion  which 
would  bring  the  sexes  into  social  contact  was  sought 
for  with  incessant  eagerness. 

In  short,  Cupid  was  the  reigning  deity.  Marry- 
ing, giving  in  marriage — and  forgiving  in  marriage — 
have  rarely  been  carried  on  more  hilariously.  Ovid 
himself  was  married  thrice;  but  this  was  modera- 
tion. His  claims  to  popularity  were  quite  different. 
Of  all  that  carnival  of  amorous  gaiety,  legitimate  and 
illegitimate,  he  was  the  poet  and  high-priest.  It  is 
true  that  genuine  love  requires  little  literary  stim- 
ulus. "A  lady  asked  me  the  other  day,"  says  Ana- 
tole  France,  "of  what  use  were  poets.  I  told  her 
they  helped  us  to  love,  but  she  assured  me  one  could 
love  very  well  without  them."  Ovid  himself  ac- 
knowledges the  same  thing  with  charming  candour: 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS         249 

"My  verses  teach  only  what  everybody  knows  al- 
ready." Nevertheless,  gaudy  youth  will  always, 
with  the  hero  of  Shakespeare,  like  books  that  are 
well-bound  and  that  treat  of  love.  And  Ovid,  in- 
exhaustible in  poetic  ingenuity,  fed  the  popular  ap- 
petite, first  with  a  glowing  account  of  his  own  experi- 
ences, and  then  with  an  elaborate  treatise  on  the  Art 
of  Love,  which  proved  him  at  once  to  be  an  ex- 
pert, and  no  doubt  won  him  the  applause  and  ad- 
miration of  all  who  had  been,  were,  or  wished  to  be 
successful  lovers. 

Few  men  were  better  able  to  enjoy  or  appreciate 
such  a  position.  He  had  not  sufficient  depth  of  na- 
ture for  profound  sympathy,  but  he  was  eminently 
mobile,  sensitive,  and  quick  to  respond  to  outside 
influences.  He  was  a  thorough  egotist,  but  he  had 
also  the  strong  social  instinct  which  obscures  egotism 
when  it  cannot  obliterate  it.  He  was  selfish,  yet 
he  was  kindly  where  it  cost  him  nothing,  and  though 
he  was  intensely  ambitious,  Landor  has  well  pointed 
out  that  few  poets  have  spoken  of  their  contempo- 
raries with  less  jealousy  than  he.  In  all  his  vast 
work,  there  is  little  trace  of  genuine  passion,  and 
consequently  his  poetry  lacks  the  high  note  that  pas- 
sion gives.  He  is  fanciful  rather  than  imaginative, 
gay  rather  than  merry,  ingenious  rather  than  pro- 
found. In  fact,  ingenuity  haunts  him  everywhere. 
A  professional  story-teller,  he  can  never  lose  him- 


250         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

self  in  his  story,  as  do  Boccaccio  and  Chaucer,  Dumas 
and  Scott.  The  whole  world  to  him,  earth,  heaven, 
and  hell,  is  matter  for  perpetual  cleverness.  He  re- 
minds one  often  of  Oscar  Wilde,  and,  like  Wilde, 
he  seemed  of  all  men  least  fitted  to  bear  the  sudden 
blast  of  misery  that  came  upon  him. 

For,  in  the  height  of  his  popularity,  when  he  was 
doing  his  best  and  soberest  work,  when  all  Rome 
admired  and  applauded  him,  he  was  sent  by  the 
Emperor  Augustus  into  perpetual  exile  at  the  end 
of  the  world.  The  exact,  immediate  cause  of  this 
misfortune  is  not  clearly  known.  Ovid  refers  to 
it  often,  but  in  veiled  language  and  with  obscure 
hints  only.  The  most  probable  conjecture  is  that 
he  was  in  some  way  involved  in  one  of  the  scandals 
of  the  imperial  family  and  had  seen  and  heard  more 
than  he  should  have  done.  Back  of  this  pretext, 
however,  it  seems  evident  that  the  emperor  wished 
to  punish  the  poet  for  his  very  objectionable  verses. 
Among  other  ambitions  Augustus  had  that  of  desiring 
to  be  a  reformer.  He  found  Rome  brick  and  left 
it  marble.  He  also  found  it  corrupt  and  wished  to 
leave  it  virtuous.  This  was  a  good  deal  more  dif- 
ficult. No  coadjutors,  he  thought,  would  be  more 
helpful  than  the  poets.  Virgil,  and  even  Horace, 
fell  in  with  the  revival  policy  admirably.  But  Ovid, 
Ovid — he  triumphed  with  ecstasy  in  everything  the 
emperor  most  wished  to  suppress.  Therefore,  when 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        251 

a  good  occasion  presented  itself,  he  had  to  suffer. 

He  did  suffer.  At  the  age  of  fifty  he  was  exiled 
to  Tomi,  a  little  colony,  half  Greek,  half  barbarian, 
on  the  Black  Sea,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Danube. 
The  decree  came  upon  him  suddenly  and  he  gives 
a  piteous  description  of  his  hurried  departure,  the 
scanty  preparation,  the  forlorn  leavetakings.  A  rough 
and  violent  winter  voyage  brought  him,  after  many 
narrow  escapes,  to  the  dreary,  barren  edge  of  civilisa- 
tion, where  he  was  to  spend  eight  miserable  years, 
and  from  which  he  sent  forth  one  prolonged  wail  of 
metrical  agony.  "To  think  that  one  whose  name 
was  a  household  word  in  Rome  should  have  to  live 
among  the  Bessi  and  the  Getes !"  That  is  the  per- 
petual note. 

Could  there  be  a  more  curious  psychological  study 
than  such  a  man,  thrown  into  such  surroundings  and 
himself  supplying  careful  notes  on  his  sufferings  and 
experiences?  For,  in  his  long  series  of  verse  let- 
ters to  home  friends,  he  details,  with  cruel  monotony, 
if  not  the  incidents,  at  least  the  emotions,  of  his 
daily  life.  As  might  have  been  expected,  with  his 
character,  disaster  so  complete  brings  complete  moral 
collapse.  "If  you  met  me  in  the  street,  you  would 
not  know  me,"  he  writes  to  one  friend;  "my  prime 
of  life  is  so  overcome  with  ruin."  He  does,  indeed, 
occasionally  pride  himself  on  bearing  up  with  cour- 
age. "My  soul  is  equal  to  my  evils.  From  that  my 


252         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

body  gets  strength  and  bears  things  not  to  be  borne." 
Again,  "All  woes  come  upon  me.  But  my  soul 
bears  all  woes  and  gives  my  body  strength  to  bear 
them."  These  are  vague  flashes,  however.  As  a  gen- 
eral thing,  he  finds  no  consolation,  no  comfort,  no 
refuge. 

There  seems  to  be  little  effort  to  seek  for  charm 
or  interest  in  his  surroundings,  yet  some  charm  or 
interest  they  must  have  had,  surely.  All  through 
his  earlier  work  there  are  constant  traces  of  delight 
in  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  though  his  expression 
of  this  is  too  apt  to  be  deformed  by  the  attempt  at 
cleverness,  it  has  often  exquisite  feeling. 

Nee  minimum  refert,  intacta  rosaria  primus, 
An  sera  carpas  paene  relicta  manu. 

To  be  sure,  the  nature  of  the  Scythian  steppes  was 
far  remote  from  that  of  Tibur  or  Psestum;  yet  one 
would  think  its  breadth,  its  colour,  its  vastness,  must 
have  made  some  spiritual  appeal.  To  Ovid  there  is 
none,  nothing  but  barrenness,  shuddering  desolation, 
horror,  and  cold,  cold,  forever  cold.  It  is  most  curi- 
ous to  note  how  again  and  again  he  starts  to  paint 
what  he  sees  about  him,  and,  before  he  knows  it, 
slips  into  painting  what  he  does  not  see;  violets, 
roses,  the  breath  of  vineyards,  merry  barefoot  maid- 
ens dancing  in  the  autumn  sun.  His  heart  aches 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS         253 

as  he  remembers,  and  his  light  verses  grow  heavy 
with  the  weight  of  tears. 

There  is  one  natural  solace  that  he  would  indulge 
in,  if  he  could,  and  his  longing  for  it  is  a  great  ele- 
ment of  attraction  in  him.  Apparently  even  in  the 
giddy  days  of  laughter  and  vanity,  he  had  learned, 
or  had  not  forgotten,  the  true  Roman  love  of  the 
soil.  He  recalls  with  sadness  those  gardens — tended 
now  by  whom? — which  he  himself  was  wont  to 
cherish,  and  the  trees  he  planted  from  which  others 
must  pluck  the  fruit.  The  touch  of  the  soil,  he 
feels,  would  make  him  forget  thought,  the  homely 
contact  of  goats  or  sheep.  He  would  like  to  learn 
the  Getic  cries  for  guiding  oxen,  to  grasp  the  plough 
in  his  hand  and  cast  the  seed  upon  the  turned  earth. 
His  quick  imagination  fires  with  the  idea, — these 
fields,  why  not  clear  the  tangled  weeds  out  of  them'? 
Why  not  bring  water  to  the  parched  and  sterile  soil  *? 
Yet,  after  all,  what  is  the  use"?  This  is  not  civilised 
Italy.  And  what  profits  labour,  when  the  maraud- 
ing Scythian  may  sweep  away  a  season's  effort  in  one 
night? 

But,  if  nature  is  inadequate  and  uncertain,  there 
are  still  men,  and  women,  and  children.  Surely  they 
ought  to  be  all  the  more  interesting  because  they  are 
different  from  those  at  home.  We  are  told  that 
Ovid  was  the  keenest  of  observers.  Always  "in  the 


254         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

closest  contact  with  human  nature,"  says  Sellar;  and 
Landor,  "that  poet  who  with  all  his  levity  has  more 
unobtrusively  sage  verses  than  any,  be  he  Roman  or 
Athenian."  It  may  be  so;  but  he  appears  to  find 
very  little  worth  his  talent  in  an  eight  years'  resi- 
dence at  Tomi.  Rare  indeed  is  any  touch  of  genuine 
observation:  "The  women  pound  corn,  instead  of 
spinning,  and  carry  heavy  vessels  of  water  on  their 
bent  heads."  Occasionally  he  sketches  in  broad  out- 
lines the  hurrying  throng  as  he  sees  it  about  him: 
"You  want  to  know  something  of  these  people  of" 
Tomi  where  I  dwell?  A  mixed  company,  between 
Greek  and  Getic,  but  more  of  the  half-subdued  Getic 
than  the  Greek.  .  .  .  Not  one  of  them  who  does 
not  carry  quiver  and  bow  and  arrows  dark  with 
viper's  gall.  Fierce  voices,  cruel  faces,  the  true  breed 
of  Mars,  unshorn,  unshaven,  quick  to  strike  with  the 
knife  that  every  man  of  them  carries  at  his  thigh. 
Among  these  creatures,  dear  friend,  now  dwells  thy 
poet,  alas,  forgetful  of  his  dainty  loves ;  such  things 
he  hears  and  such  he  sees."  And  the  shudder  of  his 
rising  hair  and  nerve-racked  flesh  makes  his  verses 
harsh  as  the  filing  of  a  saw : 

Nee  vacat,  in  qua  sint  positi  regione  Tomitae, 
Quaerere,  finitimo  vix  loca  nota  Getae; 

Aut  quid  Sauromatae  faciant,  quid  lazyges  acres, 
Cultaque  Oresteae  Taurica  terra  deae. 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        255 

If  he  had  not  leisure  even  to  observe  or  describe 
the  human  movement  that  was  going  on  about  him, 
it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  he  would  enter  into 
it  with  sympathy,  that  he  would  make  acquaintances 
or  friends,  and  find  in  new  affection,  however  dif- 
ferent, some  recompense  for  the  loss  of  the  old.  Ap- 
parently he  did  not.  "Here  is  no  friend,"  he  says, 
"whose  chat  can  wile  away  the  slowly  slipping 
hours."  And  in  a  moment  of  petulance  he  brands 
everybody  with  savage  condemnation — "The  men 
are  hardly  worthy  of  the  name :  the  wolves  are  only 
a  little  more  savage."  It  is  true  that  when  his  neigh- 
bours at  last  find  out  this  attitude  and  not  unnatu- 
rally take  offence  at  it,  he  apologises.  No,  no,  not 
you,  he  says,  I  never  quarrelled  with  you.  It  is  my 
own  situation  I  grieve  over  here.  You  are  all  kind 
to  me,  very,  very  kind.  It  is  your  country  I  don't 
like.  And  you  don't  like  it  yourselves.  With  time 
he  overcomes  his  prejudices,  learns  the  native  lan- 
guage, writes  in  it,  is  praised  and  honoured,  and 
finds,  no  doubt,  a  certain  satisfaction  in  being  so. 

Yet,  even  allowing  for  all  the  circumstances,  the 
man's  bearing  seems  to  me  thoroughly  consistent  with 
what  we  know  of  him.  He  was  quick  and  sensitive. 
He  had  no  depth  of  kindliness  or  sympathy.  It  is 
only  necessary,  to  place  the  elaborate  love  letters  of 
his  heroines  beside  Dante's  Francesca  or  Virgil's 
Dido  to  perceive  this.  But  compare  Ovid  with  a 


256         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

much  lesser  personage  than  Dante  or  Virgil,  with 
Dumas  pere,  whom  in  some  ways  he  resembles. 
Dumas  would  have  felt  such  an  exile  from  Paris  as 
keenly  as  Ovid;  but  in  three  months  he  would  have 
had  three  love  affairs,  have  hobnobbed  with  Greek 
and  Sarmate,  have  rigged  a  stage  and  put  on  melo- 
dramas that  would  have  drawn  tears  and  coin  from 
every  Getic  soul.  Since  he  could  not  go  to  Rome, 
he  would  have  brought  Rome  to  Tomi,  and  the  pres- 
ent applause  of  the  barbarians  would  almost  have 
made  up  for  remote  Roman  forgetfulness. 

I  ask  myself,  further,  whether  adversity  accom- 
plished any  change  in  Ovid's  inner  life,  whether  the 
loss  of  all  he  loved  brought  the  least  profit  in  self- 
examination,  in  stiffening  of  spiritual  fibre,  in  puri- 
fying and  elevating  of  moral  tone.  The  response  is 
slighter  than  one  could  wish.  Of  repentance  for 
early  folly  and  indiscretion,  real  regret  for  having 
offended,  not  only  against  the  wishes  of  Augustus, 
but  against  all  the  purer  and  finer  traditions  of  Ro- 
man morals,  there  is  hardly  a  trace.  Once  or  twice, 
indeed,  the  poet's  agony  wrings  from  him  what 
sounds  like  a  cry  of  genuine  remorse.  "When  I  was 
fortunate  and  happy,  I  toyed  with  youthful,  happy 
things.  Now  at  last  I  come  to  regret  it."  Again, 
even  more  earnestly :  "Oh,  I  repent,  I  repent,  if  ever 
wretchedness  is  to  be  trusted;  and  my  error  wrings 
my  soul.  My  fault  is  worse  to  me  than  my  exile 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        257 

and  to  have  sinned  is  worse  than  to  suffer  the  penalty. 
So  help  me  God,  to  whom  that  sin  is  known,  the 
penalty  may  be  removed,  the  sin  will  last  forever." 
It  seems  hard  not  to  believe  such  a  fervour  of  con- 
fession as  this.  Yet  with  Ovid  one  never  knows. 
His  general  tone  in  regard  to  his  shortcomings  is 
much  more  one  of  apology  and  of  defence.  Others 
have  done  far  worse  than  he.  Look  at  the  old  poets, 
Greek  and  Latin.  What  things  are  written  there 
and  no  poet  was  ever  exiled  for  them !  Look  at  the 
stage — a  horror,  beside  which  his  verses  are  innocent. 
And  there  is  the  old  plea,  that  he  gave  the  public 
only  what  it  asked  for.  Altogether,  it  seems  as  if 
the  regret  were  less  for  having  offended  morals  than 
for  having  offended  Augustus. 

Also,  misery  should  have  bred  tenderness  and  toler- 
ance as  well  as  repentance.  Did  it?  I  have  already 
noted  Lander's  stress  upon  Ovid's  general  kindliness. 
"I  wish  well  to  Ovidius,  for  he  speaks  well  of  every- 
body," says  Messala,  in  his  charming  dialogue  with 
Tibullus.  This  is  in  the  main  undeniable,  and  some- 
times a  deeper  spirit  of  forgiveness  breathes  in  the 
melancholy  elegies:  "Your  loyalty  is  precious.  As 
for  those  who  turned  their  backs  and  fled  with  for- 
tune, let  us  forgive  them."  Yet  over  against  this 
we  must  set  that  curious  outburst  of  rage  called 
"Ibis,"  in  which  the  poet  hurls  his  whole  arsenal 
of  fury  against  an  enemy  who  persists  in  hounding 


258         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

him  even  in  his  exile.  Such  a  luxury  of  cursing,  such 
a  finished,  ornate,  elaborate  triumph  of  anathema 
can  hardly  be  produced  elsewhere  outside  the  eccle- 
siastical perfection  of  Doctor  Slop.  A  mere  literary 
exercise,  in  imitation  of  Callimachus,  say  some. 
Literary  the  thing  is,  to  the  point  of  frigidity,  like 
much  of  Ovid's  writing.  But  literary  or  not,  a  mind 
which  could  occupy  itself  with  such  vindictiveness 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  chastened,  or  sweet- 
ened, or  purified  by  adversity. 

The  truth  is,  during  the  whole  long  eight  years, 
the  exile  thought  of  but  one  thing,  getting  home 
again.  This  effort  sustained  him,  this  hope  com- 
forted him.  Without  it  his  only  refuge  would  have 
been  the  suicide  from  which  a  faithful  friend  saved 
him  when  the  blow  first  fell. 

From  the  beginning  he  keeps  up  a  perpetual  epis- 
tolary bombardment  upon  every  one  in  Rome  who  is 
likely  to  have  interest  or  influence.  The  emperor, 
of  course,  stands  first  and  to  him  Ovid  addresses 
appeal  after  appeal,  varying  his  petitions  with  all 
possible  ingenuity  of  flattery.  The  longest  of  these 
letters  is  the  elaborate  defence  referred  to  above, 
in  which  the  poet  justifies  his  errors  by  the  example 
of  others.  It  would  seem  as  if  nothing  could  have 
shown  more  lack  of  judgment.  If  Augustus  was 
really  bent  on  reforming  the  world,  he  was  not  likely 
to  be  gratified  by  the  argument  that  all  literature 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        259 

was  against  him.  A  sincere  offer  of  assistance  would 
probably  have  gone  further;  but  no  doubt  he  knew 
that  of  this  Ovid  was  quite  incapable.  At  any  rate, 
neither  argument,  nor  gross  flattery,  nor  piteous  plea 
made  any  impression,  unless  Ovid  was  right  in 
imagining  that  the  emperor  was  preparing  to  re- 
consider at  the  time  of  his  death. 

Below  the  throne  there  was  a  long  list  of  friends 
and  acquaintances  to  whom  Ovid  writes  with  agon- 
ised entreaty.  What  their  response  was  we  can  only 
guess;  but  it  is  likely  to  have  implied  more  or  less 
amiable  evasion.  In  the  first  series  of  his  letters, 
the  "Tristia,"  he  mentions  few  names,  appealing  now 
to  one  great  personage,  now  to  another,  anonymously, 
with  the  evident  fear  that  they  would  not  wish  to 
be  compromised.  But  in  the  "Pontic  Epistles"  he 
drops  this  precaution,  whether  because  he  has  grown 
hopeless  or  because  the  whole  story  has  become  too 
public  for  comment  to  be  dangerous.  Among  his 
correspondents  are  some  of  the  greatest  names  of 
Rome  and  he  addresses  them  in  every  variety  of  tone. 
Now  he  learns  of  one,  trusted  utterly,  who  has  be- 
trayed him,  and  it  seems  as  if  the  foundations  of 
his  universe  were  shaken.  Or  again,  a  mere  acquaint- 
ance, from  whom  he  expected  nothing,  proves  loyal, 
and  his  heart  exults  with  hope.  In  his  extremity,  he 
even  goes  outside  the  limits  of  Roman  friendship  and 
appeals  to  the  barbarian  king  Cotys,  if  by  any  chance 


260         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

his  influence  may  avail  with  the  imperial  auto- 
crat. Sometimes  he  reproaches  bitterly,  for  real  or 
imagined  neglect:  "The  ants  never  throng  to  a  de- 
serted granary.  Lose  your  wealth  and  you  will  lose 
your  friends."  Sometimes  he  declares  that  he  will 
give  up  the  attempt,  reconcile  himself,  forget: 
"There  are  wounds  that  are  made  worse  by  meddling 
with  them.  It  is  better  to  let  them  alone."  But 
this  mood  does  not  last.  No  diversion,  no  reaction 
lasts;  all  give  place,  and  that  speedily,  to  the  pro- 
longed, renewed,  inevitable  wail :  Rome,  Rome,  bring 
me  back  to  Rome,  or  if  not  that,  get  me  delivered 
from  this  Scythian  horror,  this  bleak  and  frigid  epit- 
ome of  hell. 

There  is  one  intercessor  in  whom  the  poet  places 
more  confidence  than  in  any  other — his  wife;  and 
his  letters  to  her  are  the  most  curious  of  all.  How 
genuine  was  his  affection  for  her1?  She  was  his  third 
matrimonial  experiment,  and  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  how  deep  his  conjugal  devotion  may  have 
been  before  disaster  came.  Certainly,  to  hear  him, 
you  would  think  they  must  have  been  a  pair  of 
doves.  She  is  the  half  of  his  soul.  He  would  be 
glad  indeed  to  perish  if  only  she  can  be  safe.  Her 
agony  at  his  departure — so  he  says — was  indescriba- 
ble :  swooning,  torn  hair,  gelid  limbs,  a  first  impulse 
to  go  with  him,  a  second  to  die  since  she  cannot  have 
him,  the  third  to  live  only  with  the  sacred  purpose 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        261 

of  devoting  herself  to  his  recall.  From  the  far 
shores  of  Scythia  he  writes  back,  commending  her 
fidelity.  He  knows  all  she  is  doing  for  him.  She 
is  as  chaste  as  Penelope,  as  faithful  as  Laodamia,  and 
he  wraps  her  in  the  purple  garment  of  mythology 
which  he  had  ready-made  for  all  the  numerous  and 
varied  ladies  whom  it  served  his  turn  to  celebrate. 
Her  birthday  comes.  He  will  honour  it  in  frozen 
Tomi  as  he  used  to  in  Italian  sunshine.  "Blessed 
festival,  come  hither,  hither  to  my  far-off  dwelling- 
place;  come  all  bright  and  shining,  alas,  too  much 
unlike  my  own." 

Yet  there  grows  later  a  little  impatience,  if  you 
are  watching  carefully.  Why  can't  she  do  some- 
thing? The  years  are  going,  going.  There  is  the 
empress.  Surely  she  can  appeal  to  her.  Risk? 
What  if  there  is  a  little  risk?  Even  if  she  loses  her 
life  in  the  attempt,  there  was  a  king  Admetus  who 
had  a  queen,  Alcestis.  But  there — bore  my  wife,  so 
faithful,  though  a  little  timid,  a  little  inexperienced 
in  the  world's  wicked  ways?  I  am  not  the  sort  of 
man  for  that.  And  one  asks  one's  self,  What  was 
she  doing  all  those  years?  Really  longing,  loving; 
or  betraying,  forgetting?  Who  may  know? 

Whatever  doubt  may  attach  to  Ovid's  affection 
for  his  wife,  none  attends  the  brief  glimpse  we  get 
of  his  daughter,  the  lovely-named  Perilla,  who  had 
probably  little  influence  and  apparently  much 


262         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

charm.  He  makes  a  tender  reference  to  her  in  the 
"Fasti":  "One  daughter  I  have,  and  may  she  long 
outlive  me.  With  her  alive  I  cannot  but  be  happy." 
And  one  letter  he  writes  to  her  from  his  melancholy 
exile.  It  is  sad  enough,  but  it  has  a  singularly  win- 
ning grace.  Where  will  it  find  her,  he  wonders, 
sitting  with  her  gentle  mother  or  busy  with  her 
books'?  Wherever  she  may  be,  he  knows  she  will 
snatch  it  eagerly,  wild  with  desire  to  know  how  he 
is  and  what  he  is  about.  Those  books — does  she 
remember  how  they  enjoyed  them  together,  made 
verses  together,  each  helped  the  other  in  the  lovely 
converse  of  the  Muses?  Those  books — let  her  cling 
to  them  still.  She  need  not  fear  that  song  will  be 
her  ruin  as  it  has  been  his.  For  she  can  sing  nothing 
but  what  is  innocent  and  pure.  And  her  beauty  will 
fade,  and  age  with  noiseless  foot  will  come  stealing 
upon  her;  but  the  delight  of  thought  and  the  en- 
chanting grace  of  poetry  can  never  grow  old. 

So  this  vision  of  fresh  girlhood  breaks  in,  like  a 
gleam  of  sunshine,  on  the  varied  monotony  of  com- 
plaint. But  the  clouds  close  again  at  once,  and  if 
the  poet  thinks  of  anything  but  his  woes,  he  does 
not  speak  of  it.  Long  day  after  long  day  he  broods 
on  misery.  Ill  health*?  No,  not  ill  health,  at  least 
not  always.  He  has  been  frail  from  childhood,  but 
on  the  whole  he  bears  his  troubles  physically  well. 
Perhaps  the  strong  fresh  air  even  invigorates  nerves 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS         263 

spent  with  too  much  Roman  luxury.  But  for  the 
mind — what  is  there  to  hope  *?  Days  of  terror,  years 
of  remorseless,  cold  life  unrelieved  by  affection,  or 
society,  or  glory;  and  death — death  in  that  barren 
desert,  untended,  unpitied,-  unbewailed.  Why,  if 
tales  be  true,  his  Roman  ghost  must  wander  forever 
among  Sarmatic  shadows.  Ah,  no,  rather  perish  on 
the  pyre,  body  and  soul.  But  at  least  he  begs  that 
those  who  love  him — if  any  love  him — may  bring 
back  his  ashes  in  a  little  urn,  that  so  he  may  not  be 
an  exile  even  after  death. 

From  thoughts  bitter  as  these,  memory,  though 
also  bitter,  affords  a  sort  of  refuge,  and  the  poet 
lives  much  in  the  past,  forgetting  in  the  pale  glow 
of  his  imagination  the  wastes  of  Scythia  and  the  bat- 
tle cries  of  Gete  and  Sarmate.  Rome  hangs  ever 
before  him,  Rome  so  immeasurably  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  Roman  world.  Paris  to  a  Frenchman 
means  much.  Perhaps  no  Parisian  could  be  per- 
manently happy  away  from  it.  Still,  there  are  other 
capitals  besides  Paris.  And  some  flavour  of  civilisa- 
tion would  be  found  in  almost  any  modern  exile. 
To  a  Roman,  outside  of  Rome  there  was  nothing — 
not  even  in  Athens  or  the  gorgeous  cities  of  the  East. 
Thus  it  is  that  Ovid  tells  over  to  himself  all  those 
past  days  and  the  delights  of  them,  visits  again 
known  streets  and  squares,  basks  in  sunlit  porticos, 


264         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

hears  the  common  cries  that  once  seemed  harsh  and 
now  re-echo  so  deliciously. 

Not  the  city  only,  but  the  things  that  were  done 
there,  fill  his  memory  and  sting  it  with  a  terrible, 
enchanting  pain.  Youth,  youth  is  fled  far  enough 
anyway,  but  how  much  farther  it  seems,  and  dim- 
mer, and  sweeter,  across  those  stern  and  savage  seas. 
Now  he  recalls  pleasant  days  and  merry  companions : 
"I  remember  so  well  our  pastimes  together  and  the 
dainty  jests  that  sped  the  moments  swiftly.  The 
hours  seemed  too  brief  for  the  interchange  of  thought 
and  the  day  was  gone  sooner  than  what  I  had  to 
tell  you."  Now  he  goes  over,  less,  no  doubt,  for  his 
correspondent  than  for  himself,  a  rapid  sketch  of  his 
childhood  and  young  manhood,  touches  tenderly  the 
memory  of  his  lost  brother,  dwells  at  length  on  his 
passion  for  study  and  poetry  and  the  friends  it 
brought  him.  Virgil  he  saw,  Horace  he  heard,  Pro- 
pertius  he  knew  well.  Where  are  they  now?  Or 
his  mind  turns  to  earlier  wanderings,  far,  far  dif- 
ferent from  those  he  has  lately  known.  Then,  with 
his  friend  Macer,  he  visited  the  purple  East,  Greece, 
and  Sicily, — all  sunshine,  all  gaiety,  all  charm.  It 
is  one  thing  to  travel  at  your  own  wayward  will,  in 
jovial  company,  when  pleasant  sights  suggest  quick 
thoughts,  and  quick  thoughts  breed  harmless  jests, 
and  when  above  all,  if  you  choose,  you  can  turn 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        265 

your  ship's  prow  backward  and  in  a  few  hours  be 
in  Rome  again.  But  Scythia ! 

And  those  who  have  dreamed  dreams  of  loved  ones 
lost  and  joy  vanished  will  know  what  dreams  must 
have  been  to  Ovid.  To  see,  to  hear,  actually  to 
touch,  and  then  to  have  all  snatched  away  again  in 
a  moment!  "My  dreams  affright  me  with  the 
shadow  of  real  things  and  my  inner  sense  wakes  ever 
for  my  ruin.  Sometimes  I  seem  to  shun  the  flying 
arrows  and  to  extend  my  captive  hands  for  cruel 
chains.  Or  again,  fooled  by  the  treachery  of  too 
sweet  sleep,  I  behold  the  far  dwellings  of  my  own 
country,  and  speak  my  fill  with  the  friends  I  love 
and  with  my  darling  wife.  Then  I  awake,  and  see 
how  false  was  my  delight,  and  my  present  state  is 
made  worse  by  the  keen  perception  of  all  that  I 
have  lost.  Thus,  whether  day  beholds  this  wretched 
head,  or  whether  the  dewy  steeds  of  night  are  pass- 
ing slowly,  my  heart  is  melted  within  me  by  per- 
petual care,  even  as  new  wax  is  melted  by  a  sudden 
flame." 

And  love?  What  of  love"?  He  had  been  the 
poet  of  love,  the  prophet  of  love,  the  high-priest  of 
love.  Will  love  desert  him  now*?  The  memory  of 
past  triumphs  and  successes  still  lingers  with  him — 
a  torture,  or  a  delight"?  Cupid  appears  to  him  in  a 
dream  and  comforts  him  with  the  near  prospect  of 
release  from  exile.  Again,  in  a  more  melancholy 


266         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

moment,  he  composes  his  epitaph  and  calls  upon  all 
true  lovers  to  pray  for  his  repose.  Yet  I  hardly 
think  love,  as  a  personal  emotion,  can  ever  have 
been  a  very  important  element  in  his  life.  At  any 
rate,  when  he  arrived  at  Tomi,  he  was  well  past 
middle  age,  and  there  is  certainly  no  indication  of 
amatory  solace  during  his  sojourn  there.  I  have  said 
that  Dumas  would  have  had  many  love-affairs  upon 
his  hands.  But  Ovid  was  of  a  different  temper.  He 
himself  tells  us  that  he  never  gave  a  thought  to 
such  things  and  naively  confirms  the  assertion  by 
declaring  that  his  surroundings  afforded  no  oppor- 
tunity. It  seems  more  than  probable  that  he  is  an- 
other striking  instance  of  a  fact  singularly  attested 
in  the  correspondence  of  Sterne,  that  the  men  who 
have  written  most  freely  on  sexual  matters  are,  for 
obvious  reasons,  apt  to  be  personally  of  a  rather 
frigid  temperament. 

No,  I  imagine  that  the  recollection  of  love  and 
all  his  dealings  with  it  and  all  it  had  done — or  un- 
done— for  him,  afforded  Ovid  little  but  bitterness. 
And  though  he  would  have  comprehended  but  im- 
perfectly the  beautiful  sentences  of  his  great  admirer 
Landor,  he  would  have  been  quite  ready  to  sub- 
scribe to  them:  "Before  I  left  Ovidius  when  I  re- 
turned his  visit,  he  read  to  me  the  commencement 
of  some  amatory  pieces,  at  which,  if  I  smiled,  it  was 
in  courtesy,  not  approbation.  From  the  mysteries 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        267 

of  religion  the  veil  is  seldom  to  be  drawn,  from  the 
mysteries  of  love  never.  For  this  offence  the  gods 
take  away  from  us  our  freshness  of  heart  and  our 
susceptibility  of  pure  delight." 

One  consolation  Ovid  had  in  his  misery,  however, 
one  serious,  high,  enduring  consolation,  without 
which  it  is  difficult  indeed  to  see  how  he  could  have 
survived;  and  that  was  literature.  All  his  life  he 
was  essentially  a  literary  man.  It  was  not  only  that 
he  loved  glory,  as  Lucretius  and  Virgil  did.  It  was 
not  only  that  he  had  an  exquisite  delight  in  artistic 
expression,  as  Horace  had.  It  was  more  than  that. 
He  looked  at  all  life,  at  nature,  at  religion,  at  man 
and  woman,  at  himself,  from  the  literary  point  of 
view,  as  much  as  ever  Flaubert  or  D'Annunzio. 
Through  all  his  emotions,  through  all  his  experiences, 
you  trace  that  curious  detachment,  that  double  per- 
sonality, by  which  the  born  writer  at  once  lives,  and 
stands  by  and  watches  himself  live.  He  had  the  writ- 
er's love  of  finish,  the  writer's  vanity,  the  writer's  pre- 
tence of  belittling  his  work  when  it  is  all  on  earth 
he  cares  for.  How  admirable  is  his  declaration  in 
one  line  that  he  has  burned  his  great  poem,  with  the 
confession  in  the  next  that  it  is  safely  extant  in 
other  copies! 

The  excess  of  this  literary  preoccupation  accounts, 
I  think,  for  the  defects  of  even  Ovid's  best  poetry. 
He  never  loses  himself  in  his  subject,  is  never  lifted 


268         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

up,  nor  swept  away.  Sellar  is  impressed  with  the 
poet's  freshness  of  imaginative  sympathy,  and  the 
Countess  Martinengo-Cesaresco  feels  that  he  ap- 
proaches the  old  myths  with  the  buoyancy  and  im- 
pressionability of  a  child.  But  Boissier  calls  him 
a  poet  of  fashion,  a  parlour  poet,  and  I  do  not  see 
how  any  one  can  read  him  widely  without  agreeing 
with  Boissier.  He  had,  it  is  true,  immense  fertility 
of  invention,  an  extraordinary  richness  and  breadth 
of  fancy.  But  always  at  critical  moments  there 
comes  the  false  note,  the  sense  of  artifice,  the  intru- 
sion of  the  writer's  cleverness  between  the  reader 
and  the  thing  portrayed.  Light,  colour,  swiftness, 
ease,  gaiety,  are  always  there;  but  human  truth  is 
not  there.  Even  in  Ovid's  lamentations,  the  sincerest 
things  he  ever  wrote,  this  literary  ingenuity  is  often 
near  at  hand.  A  sob  turns  to  an  epigram  and  a  bit- 
ter memory  is  dissolved  in  a  mythological  catalogue. 
Yet  the  fact  remains  that  literature  was  his  com- 
fort, his  solace,  his  delight,  a  pale  delight,  and  some- 
times chilled  by  the  frozen  winds  of  Scythia,  but  at 
least  something  to  turn  to,  to  banish  thought  and 
sweeten  care.  He  is  a  worker,  has  always  been  a 
worker  he  tells  us,  and  even  in  exile  and  misery  he 
works.  On  the  voyage  out,  when  the  high  seas  are 
wetting  his  manuscript,  he  is  making  verses.  After 
years  of  absence,  in  the  midst  of  barbarians,  and  with 
hostile  uproar  sounding  in  his  ears,  he  is  making 


OVID  AMONG  THE  GOTHS        269 

verses  still.  Sometimes  his  patience  fails,  sometimes 
he  loses  temper  even  with  the  Muse,  his  best,  most 
faithful,  only  friend;  after  all,  she  misled  him,  she 
ruined  him.  But  it  does  not  last  long.  She  is  a 
mistress  whose  sovereign  charm  no  lover  can  resist, 
and  he  returns  to  her  with  a  cry  which  all  her  fol- 
lowers will  echo  and  cherish:  "As  the  wounded  vo- 
tary of  Bacchus  does  not  feel  her  wounds,  when 
sense  is  numbed  by  the  wild  revel  in  Idsean  woods, 
so  when  my  heart  is  touched  by  that  thyrsus,  ever 
green,  the  spirit  within  me  rises  above  all  human 
ills.  It  forgets  exile,  forgets  the  frigid  barriers  of 
the  Scythian  sea,  forgets  even  the  anger  of  the  gods. 
I  might  have  drunk  the  cup  of  Lethe,  breeder  of 
sleep,  so  free  is  my  soul  from  the  bitter  contact  of 
adversity." 

Nor  is  it  merely  as  diversion,  distraction,  minister 
of  forgetfulness,  that  the  Muse  helps  lonely  sorrow 
such  as  Ovid's  was.  There  is  something  in  the  out- 
cry, too,  something  of  relief  and  comfort  in  pro- 
claiming one's  woes  in  imperishable  beauty  which 
distant  ears  will  hear,  if  ears  at  hand  do  not. 
Strange,  that  those  things  we  would  not,  could  not, 
utter  in  close  confidence  to  a  near  friend,  we  are 
ready  to  pour  out  from  the  housetops  that  whoso 
will  may  profit  by  them.  And  thus,  no  doubt,  Ovid, 
like  Leopardi,  like  Byron,  like  Heine,  found  conso- 


270         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

lation  in  embalming  his  griefs  in  what  he  fondly 
hoped  might  be  eternal  verses. 

One  thing  is  curious.  The  sufferings  Ovid  sang 
were  real,  tangible,  indisputable,  such  as  no  one  could 
doubt  or  laugh  at.  Byron's,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
for  the  most  part  subjective,  wilful,  matter  of  the 
mind  not  of  the  body.  Yet,  perhaps  from  this  very 
fact,  Byron's  seem  to  us  far  more  noble,  more  worthy, 
more  dignified.  Neither  was  thoroughly  manly,  but 
of  the  two  Byron  was  very  much  more  so. 

Manly  or  not,  however,  Ovid  succeeded  in  making 
millions  of  posterity  think  about  him.  The  assur- 
ance of  this  would  have  been  some  slight  alleviation 
of  his  misery.  And  indeed  there  were  times  when, 
with  the  splendid  prophetic  vision  of  a  great  poet, 
he  needed  no  external  assurance.  Thus  the  clos- 
ing lines  of  the  charming  letter  to  his  daughter  are 
among  the  finest,  not  only  of  Ovid,  but  of  any 
Roman  poet:  "Even  I,  though  I  lack  fatherland  and 
love  and  home,  though  all  things  have  been  taken 
from  me  that  can  be  taken,  yet  I  have  with  me  my 
genius  as  an  eternal  joy.  Over  that  even  Csesar  has 
no  power.  Whoever  wills  may  end  my  mortal  life. 
But  my  fame  will  live  on  when  I  have  passed  away. 
So  long  as  martial  Rome,  victorious  upon  her  seven 
hills,  shall  sway  the  orbed  world,  so  long  mankind 
shall  read  my  verses."  Moments  like  that  must  have 
paid  for  some  days  even  of  exile.  19 1 3 


XI 
PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT 


XI 


PORTRAIT    OF    A    SAINT 

FRANCIS  OF  SALES  was  a  man  who,  of  his 
own  choice,  gave  up  all  the  good  things  of 
this  world  out  of  pure  love  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Born  in  1567,  the  eldest  son  of  a  rich  and  noble 
French  family,  with  every  career  of  arms  or  state  op- 
en to  him,  he  chose  the  church,  and  without  the  use  of 
political  influence  or  intrigue,  simply  by  purity,  de- 
votion, and  a  charming  power  over  souls,  became  a 
bishop  infinitely  beloved,  and  was  duly  canonised 
after  his  death.  Few  have  better  deserved  sainthood. 
The  life  of  Saint  Francis  has  been  obscured  by 
numerous  hagiographers  with  the  pious  incense  of 
spiritual  legend.  But  one  disciple,  Camus,  Bishop 
of  Belley,  has  left  us  a  study,  "L'Esprit  de  Saint 
Francois  de  Sales,"  which  portrays  the  saint  in  his 
daily  life  almost  with  the  patience  and  fidelity  of  a 
Bos  well.  Indeed,  in  some  respects,  Bos  well  is  out- 
done; for  Camus  tells  us  that  when  his  idol  visited 
him,  in  order  to  get  more  exact  material  for  his 
record,  he  bored  a  hole  through  into  Francis's  room, 
and  watched  his  actions  even  when  he  thought  him- 

273 


274         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

self  alone.  This  is  an  extreme  biographical  solici- 
tude to  which  I  do  not  read  that  Dr.  Johnson  was 
subjected.  Perhaps  he  would  not  have  come  out 
quite  so  well  as  Saint  Francis  is  reported  to  have 
done. 

But  far  more  valuable  than  such  gossipy  external 
observation  is  Saint  Francis's  own  writing,  his  nu- 
merous sermons  and  treatises,  and  the  intimate  per- 
sonal letters  of  which  a  vast  number  have  been  pre- 
served. 

First,  for  the  shadows,  such  as  they  are.  It  was 
a  bitter  time.  The  battles  of  the  Reformation  were 
fighting  everywhere,  and  both  sides  were  tempted 
to  resort  to  words  and  deeds  that  our  cooler — and 
less  believing — age  can  hardly  tolerate.  Francis,  as 
bishop  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Protestant  Geneva, 
was  drawn  into  some  actions  and  more  words  that 
we  are  very  far  from  approving.  But  everything 
shows  that,  for  his  time,  he  was  mild  and  tolerant, 
and  really  cherished  the  spirit  of  his  own  beautiful 
sentence,  written  in  later  life:  "He  who  preaches 
with  love  really  preaches  enough  against  the  heretics, 
though  he  does  not  utter  one  word  of  controversy." 

In  dealing  with  these  practical  sides  of  the  divine 
calling,  Sainte-Beuve  justly  points  out  that  Francis 
shows  the  business  instincts  of  a  man  of  the  world. 
He  was  no  recluse,  no  shy  and  quiet  scholar.  He 
could  mingle  with  men,  and  influence  them,  and 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  275 

guide  them  in  every  day  pursuits.  He  even  com- 
plains of  the  distraction  this  brought  upon  him. 
"The  affairs  of  this  diocese  are  not  streams  but  tor- 
rents." When  he  was  sent  to  Paris  for  things  semi- 
political,  semi-religious,  he  so  demeaned  himself  that 
Henri  Quatre,  that  supreme  man  of  the  world,  spoke 
of  him  and  treated  him  with  as  much  affection  as 
respect.  If  necessary,  he  could  recall  high  persons 
to  their  duty  with  prophetic  sternness,  as  when  he 
reminded  the  Duke  of  Savoy  that  princes  were  bound 
to  give  great  thought  to  great  measures,  "on  pain 
of  eternal  damnation." 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  he  was 
one  of  the  busy,  meddling  prelates  who  long  to  ar- 
range matters  of  this  world  as  well  as  of  the  other. 
On  the  contrary,  I  have  sought  far  for  even  subtle 
and  indirect  evidence  of  such  ambition  and  have 
found  none.  He  went  into  the  world  for  duty.  For 
delight  he  gladly  and  often  went  out  of  it. 

In  other  words,  he  was  pre-eminently  a  man  of 
the  spirit,  a  man  to  whom  God  meant  everything. 
Not  that  he  was  a  great  theologian.  He  read  widely, 
read  the  Fathers  thoroughly.  His  own  treatise,  "On 
the  Love  of  God,"  contains  much  subtle  theological 
discussion,  which  some  may  find  of  profit;  but  he 
is  always  glad  to  break  away  from  difficult  problems 
and  the  vain  effort  to  search  out  the  unsearchable. 
"Poor  little  insect,"  he  says  to  his  own  understand- 


276         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

ing,  "poor  little  insect,  bred  from  the  corruption  of 
my  flesh,  why  will  you  scorch  your  wings  at  this 
immense  fire  of  divine  omnipotence,  which  would 
consume  and  devour  the  seraphim,  if  they  thrust 
themselves  into  such  expense  of  curiosity?  No,  poor 
butterfly,  thy  business  is  to  be  lost  in  adoration,  and 
not  to  dangle  thy  plummet  in  the  deep." 

This  is  the  mystic's  self-abandonment.  Saint 
Francis  took  to  it  far  more  kindly  than  to  the  de- 
bates of  Augustine  and  Aquinas.  The  treatise  above 
mentioned  is  full  of  mystical  ecstasy,  drenched  with 
it,  and  Francis's  letters  contain  many  passages  even 
more  significant  in  their  high-wrought  rapture  and 
their  absolute  submission  to  the  will  of  God.  "Keep- 
ing my  soul  forever  in  His  divine  presence,  with  a 
joy  not  over-impetuous,  but,  as  it  seems  to  me,  rich 
enough  to  express  a  perfect  love  to  Him ;  for  nothing 
in  this  world  is  worth  our  love;  it  should  be  all  for 
that  Saviour  who  has  given  us  all  of  His." 

But  the  essential  characteristic  of  Saint  Francis's 
religion  was  neither  theology  nor  ecstasy,  but  sun- 
shine. His  heart  was  simple,  and  to  the  simple  is 
given  the  supreme  heritage  of  joy.  He  did  not,  in- 
deed, wholly  claim  this  for  himself.  "I  am,  to  be 
sure,  by  no  means  simple,  but  I  love  simplicity  with 
an  extraordinary  love."  He  was  simpler  than  he 
thought,  and  pure,  and  straightforward,  and  direct. 

He  was  humble,  also,  did  not  exalt  himself  even 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  277 

by  the  assumption  of  humility.  "Humility,  sim- 
plicity of  heart  and  of  affection,  and  spiritual  sub- 
mission, are  the  solid  foundations  of  the  religious 
life."  So  he  wrote,  so  he  thought,  and  his  practice 
bore  out  the  letter  of  his  teaching. 

Above  all,  in  his  simplicity  and  in  his  humility, 
he  had  charm.  The  adjective  that  occurs  most  fre- 
quently in  his  writings,  that  occurs  with  a  singular, 
penetrating,  impressive  repetition,  is  suave,  which 
we  must  free  from  all  its  English  associations  of  in- 
sincerity and  keep  only  in  its  primitive  significance, 
of  grace,  gentleness,  sweetness,  tenderness.  "Let  us 
be  saved  with  our  amiable  relative,  Saint  Francis  of 
Sales,"  writes  Madame  de  Sevigne.  "He  leads  peo- 
ple to  Paradise  by  a  pleasanter  road  than  the  gen- 
tlemen of  Port  Royal."  And  one  of  the  great  con- 
troversialists of  the  Reformation  indicated  admirably 
the  same  thing:  "If  it  is  only  a  question  of  convinc- 
ing, I  can  do  it;  but  if  you  want  to  convert  men, 
take  them  to  the  Bishop  of  Geneva,  who  has  received 
that  gift  from  God." 

The  secret  of  this  was,  that  back  of  the  suavity, 
giving  it  breadth  and  depth  and  truth,  lay  the  tender- 
est  and  kindliest  humanity.  Here  was  a  man  at  all 
points  tempted  as  we  are,  whose  own  struggles  and 
victories  and  even  more,  failures,  give  him  infinite 
charity  for  the  failures  of  others.  There  is  never 
anywhere  in  Saint  Francis  tolerance  of  sin;  but 


278         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

there  is  an  inexhaustible  tolerance  and  patience  and 
sympathy  for  sinners. 

And  there  is  further,  what  one  surely  does  not 
look  for  in  a  canonised  saint,  but  what  adds  a  fine 
flower  to  the  saint's  grace  and  charm,  a  rich  and  joy- 
ous gaiety  which  sometimes  broadens  into  laughter. 
In  the  "Introduction  to  the  Devout  Life"  Saint 
Francis,  though  reprehending  all  uncharitable  mock- 
ery, permits  and  encourages  light  and  kindly  humour; 
and  he  himself  does  not  hesitate  to  practise  his  own 
precept,  even  in  his  spiritual  letters.  "Reverend 
mother,  you  should  live  before  God  in  entire  gaiety 
of  heart,"  he  writes  to  Madame  de  Chantal.  And 
how  winning  is  the  gentle  irony  with  which  he  dis- 
suades an  ardent  novice  from  excess  of  devotion. 
"My  dear  daughter,  we  must  allow  ourselves  re- 
pose, enough  repose;  be  kind  enough  to  leave  some 
labour  to  others,  and  not  try  to  get  all  the  crowns 
ourselves:  our  beloved  neighbour  will  be  charmed 
to  have  a  few." 

This  suavity,  this  charity,  this  large  humanity, 
together  with  boundless  tact  and  grace  in  handling 
souls,  made  Saint  Francis  probably  one  of  the  most 
skilful  and  successful  spiritual  directors  that  the 
Catholic  Church  has  ever  known,  and  it  is  in  this 
aspect  of  his  activity  that  the  study  of  him  is  most 
interesting  and  most  profitable.  As  to  the  value  of 
such  direction  there  has  always  been  dispute  and 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  279 

there  always  will  be.  Its  dangers  are  obvious.  No 
human  soul  can  wholly  take  the  burden  of  another. 
Yet  every  human  soul  has  moments  when  it  craves 
all  the  guidance  and  comfort  that  another  soul  can 
give  it.  Few  have  understood  better  than  Saint 
Francis  how  to  take  advantage  of  these  moments  and 
make  the  comfort  and  the  guidance  lasting. 

How  far  he  influenced  and  governed  men  I  can- 
not tell.  His  letters  to  them,  except  those  of  pure 
business  or  courtesy,  are  comparatively  few.  I  can- 
not help  thinking  that  some  rebuff  from  the  sterner 
sex  occasioned  one  of  his  very  rare  expressions  of 
discouragement:  "It  is  wonderful  what  power  the 
fashions  of  this  world  have  over  mankind,  and  it 
seems  hopeless  to  try  to  remedy  this.  If  you  hold 
up  to  them  hell  and  damnation,  they  hide  behind 
the  goodness  of  God.  If  you  press  them,  they  leave 
you  right  where  you  stand."  Now  and  then  he 
writes  to  some  young  nobleman,  urging  upon  him  the 
care  of  his  soul.  One  answers,  like  Calchas  in  "La 
Belle  Helene,"  that  his  natural  vocation  is  to  enjoy 
himself.  Ah,  says  the  saint,  listen  to  me  and  virtue 
will  become  a  second  nature  stronger  than  the  first. 
I  wonder  if  the  young  man  listened.  To  another 
Francis  represents  the  value  of  the  right  use  of  time, 
and  that  some  portion  of  the  day  at  least  should  be 
given  to  prayer  and  meditation;  at  any  rate,  none  to 
reading  the  fashionable  follies  of  the  hour,  such  as 


280         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

"that  infamous  Rabelais."  And  we  are  reminded  of 
Valentin,  the  young  friend  of  Goncourt.  "Valentin 
had  only  two  books :  a  Bible  of  which  he  read  a  little 
every  morning,  a  Rabelais,  of  which  he  read  a  little 
every  night."  With  all  this,  however,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  our  saint  had  the  infinite  respect  of 
men  of  all  classes  and  characters  and  that  not  a  few 
of  them  came  to  him  in  trouble  and  sorrow  and  were 
comforted. 

But  unquestionably  it  was  women  who  most  often 
sought  help  and  obtained  it.  As  to  his  personal 
relations  with  them,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
no  word  of  reproach  or  suspicion  is  possible.  His 
affection  for  Madame  de  Chantal  was  as  pure  as  it 
was  lofty.  Their  correspondence,  carried  on  for 
many  years,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  examples  of 
a  spiritual  relation  mutually  elevating,  sustaining, 
and  inspiring.  With  women  generally  he  is  said  to 
have  urged  and  to  have  himself  practised  the  most 
scrupulous  regard  for  propriety  and  reserve,  making 
it  a  rule  never  to  speak  to  any  woman  except  with  a 
third  person  present  in  the  room.  Also  he  sets,  per- 
haps half  humorously,  a  rigorous  prescription  for  let- 
ters: "When  one  writes  to  a  woman  one  ought,  if 
it  were  possible,  to  use  the  point  of  a  penknife,  in- 
stead of  a  pen,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  say  nothing  super- 
fluous." Although,  as  Sainte-Beuve,  who  quotes 
this,  points  out,  with  his  usual  charming  naivete  he 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  281 

often  forgets  his  own  precept  and  wanders  where  it 
takes  a  swift  and  current  pen  to  follow  him. 

In  all  his  counsels  to  women  it  is  interesting  to 
note  not  only  the  high  and  stimulating  impulse  to 
spiritual  intensity,  but  also  the  delicate  restraining 
hand  where  spiritual  intensity  might  be  carried  to 
excess.  No  one  is  more  eager  than  he  to  urge  the 
religious  life  upon  those  who  are  fit  for  it,  ready  for 
it.  To  a  young  girl  whose  parents  are  persuading 
her  to  marry  for  the  sake  of  marriage,  he  says :  "Those 
who  are  naturally  inclined  to  marry  and  are  married 
happily  find  so  much  occasion  for  patience  and  for 
self-denial  that  they  can  hardly  bear  the  burden; 
how  should  you  bear  it,  when  you  have  entered  it 
against  your  will1?"  Yet  in  other  cases  he  points 
out  that  the  parent's  wish  should  be  thought  of  first, 
that  domestic  duties  have  their  claim,  and  that  a 
mother's  love,  although  it  sometimes  seems  torment- 
ing, should  be  considered  and  respected  before  every- 
thing but  the  command  of  God. 

Even  to  small  matters  of  feminine  frivolity  he 
brings  an  affectionate  touch  of  common-sense.  It  is 
a  pity  to  dress  too  daintily,  but  it  is  better  to  dress 
daintily  than  to  worry  about  dressing  daintily. 
"Tell  her  to  powder  her  hair,  if  she  likes,  so  long  as 
her  heart  is  right ;  for  the  thing  is  not  worth  so  much 
thinking  about.  Don't  get  your  thoughts  entangled 
among  these  spider-webs.  The  hairs  of  this  girl's 


282         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

spirit  are  more  snarled  up  than  those  of  her  head." 
And  although  no  one  knows  better  than  he  the  depth 
and  power  and  richness  of  a  woman's  soul,  there  are 
times  when  he  feels  called  upon  to  insist  upon  her 
weakness  to  an  extent  that  would  make  the  new 
woman  somewhat  restless.  "Your  sex  needs  to  be 
led,  and  never  succeeds  in  any  enterprise  but  by  sub- 
mission; not  that  you  have  not  oftentimes  as  much 
light  as  men,  but  such  is  the  will  of  God." 

It  is  already  sufficiently  evident  what  fine  observa- 
tion, what  delicate  insight,  what  acute  comparison 
and  distinction  were  needed  to  practise  the  art  of 
soul-direction  as  Saint  Francis  practised  it.  Every- 
where through  his  writings  are  scattered  reflections 
and  comments  as  subtle  as  those  of  La  Rochefou- 
cauld or  La  Bruyere,  the  profound  wisdom  of  a  man 
who  has  walked  through  this  cruel  and  bitter  world 
with  eyes  well  open  and  not  always  turned  upward. 
"Everybody  finds  it  easy  to  practise  certain  virtues 
and  hard  to  practise  others,  and  everybody  exalts  the 
virtue  which  he  can  practise  easily  and  seeks  to  ex- 
aggerate the  difficulty  of  the  virtues  which  are  diffi- 
cult to  him."  Of  the  obstinate  and  stiff-necked  he 
says:  "Thus  we  see  that  it  is  a  natural  thing  to  be 
dominated  by  one's  opinions :  melancholy  persons  are 
ordinarily  much  more  attached  to  them  than  those 
who  are  of  a  gay  and  jovial  disposition;  for  the  latter 
are  easily  turned  by  a  light  finger  and  ready  to  be- 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  283 

lieve  whatever  is  told  them."  And  the  following 
shows  with  what  a  quick,  sharp  probe  he  went  right 
to  the  bottom  of  a  tormenting  spiritual  malady  as 
haunting  to-day  as  three  hundred  years  ago.  "Mark 
these  four  words  that  I  am  going  to  say  to  you: 
your  trouble  comes  from  your  fearing  vice  more 
than  you  love  virtue.  If  you  could  give  your  soul 
from  the  very  roots  to  the  desire  for  practical  religion, 
for  loving-kindness,  and  for  true  humility,  you 
would  soon  be  an  acceptable  Christian,  but  you  must 
think  of  these  things  all  the  time." 

Mere  insight,  however,  would  have  carried  the 
saint  but  little  way  in  his  spiritual  labours.  Far 
more  important  was  his  sympathy,  his  power  of  put- 
ting himself  in  others'  places,  his  infinite  love.  There 
is  nothing  of  remote  austerity  about  him,  nothing 
of  judicial  coldness.  He  never  hesitates  to  admit  his 
own  frailty,  his  own  temptation,  his  own  failures. 
Has  his  patient — for  what  is  he  but  a  physician  of 
the  soul? — the  disease  of  restlessness1?  He  too  has 
known  the  evil.  "May  it  not  perhaps  be  a  multi- 
tude of  desires  that  obstructs  your  spirit?  I  myself 
have  been  ill  of  this  malady.  The  bird  tied  to  its 
perch  knows  itself  to  be  bound  and  feels  the  shock 
of  its  detention  only  when  it  essays  to  fly  away." 
Or,  as  the  "Imitation"  expresses  it,  with  its  inimi- 
table and  untranslatable  grace,  Cella  continuata  dul- 
cescit,  sed  male  custodita  t&dium  general.  And  what 


284         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

can  be  more  charming  than  his  confession,  after  years 
of  ecclesiastical  dignity,  of  the  momentary  spectre, 
the  intrusive  and  quickly  banished  shadow  of  human 
regret1?  "Alas,  my  daughter,  shall  I  tell  you  what 
happened  to  me  the  other  day*?  Never  in  my  life 
before  have  I  had  a  single  hint  of  temptation  against 
my  devout  calling.  But  the  other  day,  when  I  was 
least  looking  for  it,  such  a  thing  came  into  my  mind, 
not  the  wish  that  I  did  not  belong  to  the  Church,  that 
would  have  been  too  gross;  but  because  just  before, 
talking  with  an  intimate  friend,  I  had  said  that  if 
I  were  still  free  and  were  to  become  heir  to  a  duchy, 
I  should  nevertheless  choose  the  ecclesiastical  pro- 
fession, I  loved  it  so  much,  a  little  debate  arose  in 
my  soul,  of  should  I  or  should  I  not,  which  lasted 
quite  a  space  of  time.  I  could  see  it,  it  seemed  to 
me,  way,  way  down  in  the  baser  portion  of  my  soul, 
swelling  like  a  toad.  I  laughed  at  it  and  would  not 
even  think  whether  I  was  thinking  of  it.  So  it  went 
away  in  smoke  and  I  saw  it  no  more."  Would  not 
you  and  I,  who  have  our  own  toads  crouching  in 
dark  corners,  if  we  were  to  have  a  confessor  at  all, 
wish  for  a  confessor  like  that? 

So,  on  such  a  foundation  of  vast  understanding 
and  human  sympathy,  Saint  Francis  built  up  a 
method  of  spiritual  direction  which  was  all  compact 
of  charity  and  tenderness.  For  high  and  low  alike 
he  had  the  same  breadth  of  comprehension,  allowed 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  285 

for  their  failings  and  appreciated  their  difficulties. 
Rare  indeed  in  the  seventeenth  century  is  the  human- 
ity which  would  deprive  the  rich  of  their  pleasures 
out  of  regard  for  the  poor.  "It  is  not  reason- 
able that  anybody  should  take  his  recreation  at  the 
expense  of  any  one  else,  and  especially  by  injuring 
the  poor  peasant,  who  is  sufficiently  oppressed  at 
all  times  and  whose  labour  and  miserable  condition 
we  should  always  respect."  Everywhere  in  Saint 
Francis's  writings  there  is  the  same  consideration  for 
weakness  and  wretchedness,  the  same  desire  to  make 
the  world  better  by  pity  rather  than  by  scorn.  Even 
where  scorn  is  necessary,  it  should  be  restrained  and 
moderated.  Some  things  should  be  treated  with 
contempt,  "but  the  contempt  should  be  subdued  and 
serious,  not  mocking  nor  full  of  disdain." 

But  let  us  look  more  nearly  at  some  aspects  of 
Saint  Francis's  spiritual  labours.  To  begin  with,  he 
was  essentially  practical,  at  times  almost  homely,  did 
not  by  any  means  overstress  meditation  or  pure  devo- 
tion at  the  expense  of  everyday  virtue.  He  insists 
usually  upon  truth  with  the  strictest  emphasis.  "I 
am  comforted,"  he  says,  in  his  quaint  phraseology, 
"to  find  that  you  have  a  horror  of  all  finesse  and  du- 
plicity; for  there  is  no  vice  more  contrary  to  the 
embonpoint  and  grace  of  the  soul."  It  is  true  he 
permits  rare  and  professional  exceptions.  "If  any- 
body asks  you  whether  you  have  told  something  that 


286         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

you  have  told  under  the  sacred  seal  of  confession,  you 
may  assert  boldly,  and  with  no  fear  of  duplicity, 
that  you  have  not."  But,  in  general,  he  stands  as 
firm  for  entire  truthfulness  as  any  teacher  of  any  age 
or  country. 

On  the  practice  of  little  virtues  he  is  charming. 
Not  all  can  be  saints,  not  all  can  teach  or  preach, 
not  all  can  attain  that  glory  which  is  perhaps  as 
much  of  a  false  allurement  in  the  things  of  virtue 
as  in  the  things  of  vice.  But  there  is  plenty  that 
all  can  do.  "More  than  any  others,  I  love  these 
three  little  virtues,  gentleness  of  heart,  poverty  of 
spirit,  simplicity  of  life ;  also  these  common  deeds  of 
charity,  visiting  the  sick,  aiding  the  poor,  comforting 
the  afflicted,  and  the  like.  But  do  these  things  with- 
out feverish  anxiety  and  in  the  true  freedom  of  the 
spirit." 

It  is  on  this  freedom  of  the  spirit  that  he  insists 
as  much  as  upon  anything.  Do  not  fret,  do  not  be 
anxious,  do  not  be  falsely  careful.  The  service  of 
God  is  a  joyous  service.  Over  and  over  again  he 
repeats  these  admonitions,  which,  with  Madame  de 
Chantal,  were  apparently  very  needful.  Now  he 
uses  a  homely  vivacity  of  phrase  which  recalls  Mon- 
taigne: "Heavens,  daughter,  I  wish  the  skin  of 
your  heart  were  tougher,  that  the  fleas  might  not 
keep  you  waking."  Now  he  speaks  with  a  grave 
tenderness  which  must  have  brought  comfort  to 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  287 

many  a  weary  sinner.  "We  ought  to  hate  our 
faults,  but  with  a  hatred  which  should  be  quiet  and 
tranquil,  not  spiteful  and  full  of  restlessness."  Now 
his  joyous  fancy  sings  out  in  a  burst  of  good  cheer, 
the  delicate  melody  of  which  is  quite  untranslatable : 
Laissez  courir  le  vent  et  ne  pensez  pas  que  le  frifilis 
des  feuilles  soit  le  cliquetis  des  armes. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  these 
practical  matters  are  not  all,  or  even  the  essential 
part,  of  St.  Francis's  teaching.  Through  his  letters, 
through  his  sermons,  through  his  treatises,  every- 
where, runs  the  passionate  insistence  upon  the  joy  of 
spiritual  rapture,  upon  the  splendour,  the  perfection, 
the  all-absorbing  ecstasy  of  communion  with  God. 
It  does  not  appear  that  Saint  Theresa  herself  felt 
this  more  fully  or  proclaimed  it  more  frequently. 
Only  here,  as  always,  Saint  Francis  shows  his  serene 
common  sense.  Ecstasy  is  much,  he  urges,  but  in  our 
human  life  on  this  dusty  earth  it  cannot  be  all.  There 
are  common  duties  from  the  performance  of  which  no 
ecstasy  can  set  us  free.  "If  it  pleases  God  to  let  us 
taste  of  these  angelic  experiences,  we  will  do  our  best 
to  receive  them  worthily;  meantime,  let  us  devote 
ourselves  simply  and  humbly  to  the  little  virtues 
which  our  Lord  has  commended  to  our  effort  and 
care." 

And  as  there  are  times  when  the  sweetest  and  pur- 
est souls  cannot  rise  above  themselves,  cannot  shake 


288         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

off  the  dust  of  earth,  are  overcome  and  overwhelmed 
by  shadow  and  despair,  or  by  that  dead  inertia  which 
is  almost  worse  than  despair,  for  these  times  espe- 
cially Saint  Francis  is  ready  with  consolation,  ready 
with  encouragement,  ready  with  hope.  Above  all, 
he  thinks,  souls  so  cast  down  should  not  be  chidden 
or  reproved.  Let  them  know,  he  urges  all  confes- 
sors, let  them  know  that  you  too  are  human  and  have 
erred  and  suffered  even  as  they.  "If,  for  example, 
you  see  one  who  is  bowed  down  by  remorse  and 
shame,  give  him  confidence  and  assurance  that  you 
are  not  an  angel  any  more  than  he,  that  you  find  it 
in  no  way  wonderful  that  a  mere  man  should  sin." 
For  those  hours  of  wayward  depression,  which  come 
without  cause  and  vanish  without  warning,  he  has 
his  own  grace  of  tender  reassurance.  Do  not  strive 
too  much,  do  not  battle  too  much.  Wait  and  hope 
and  pray  patiently  for  the  goodness  of  God.  And 
he  analyses  such  dark  phases  with  a  subtlety  which 
shows  that  he  knew  well  what  he  was  talking  about. 
"The  evil  sadness  comes  upon  you  like  a  hail  storm 
with  an  unlocked  for  change  and  a  vast  impetuosity 
of  terror.  It  comes  all  at  once  and  you  know  not 
whence  it  comes,  for  it  has  no  foundation  in  reason; 
nay,  when  it  has  come,  it  hunts  about  everywhere  for 
reasons  to  justify  itself.  But  the  sweet  and  fruitful 
sadness  comes  gently  upon  the  soul,  like  a  soft  rain 
which  moistens  blessedly,  bringing  the  warmth  of 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  289 

consolation ;  and  it  comes  not  unheralded,  but  for  a 
good  and  sufficient  cause." 

The  reader  cannot  but  have  noticed  already  that 
Francis  was  not  only  a  saint,  but  a  great  writer,  and 
as  with  other  great  writers,  his  manner  of  writing  is 
most  significantly  characteristic  of  the  man  himself. 
To  be  sure,  he  maintains  that  a  preacher  should  put 
aside  all  thought  of  mere  expression,  and  modestly 
disclaims  any  literary  effort  on  his  own  part.  "I 
make  no  pretence  of  being  a  writer;  for  the  sluggish- 
ness of  my  wit  and  the  circumstances  of  my  life — 
make  such  a  thing  impossible  for  me."  Yet  it  is  per- 
mitted to  doubt,  with  Saint-Beuve,  whether  so  fine 
a  master  of  words  did  not  take  some  pleasure  in  the 
use  of  them.  Moreover,  while  denying  to  the 
preacher  the  privilege  of  literary  artifice,  Francis 
enjoins  upon  him  the  most  careful  employment  of 
literary  art  as  an  exquisite  and  powerful  means  of 
moving  souls.  The  distinction  is  sometimes  a  little 
hard  to  draw.  But  in  the  following  admirable  pas- 
sage he  states  it  clearly:  "In  a  word,  you  should 
speak  affectionately  and  devoutly,  simply  and  can- 
didly, and  with  a  firm  faith;  you  should  be  pro- 
foundly possessed  by  the  doctrine  you  teach  and  by 
all  that  you  wish  to  impress  upon  others.  The 
greatest  artifice  of  all  is  to  have  no  artifice.  .  .  . 
You  may  say  what  you  please,  but  the  heart  speaks 
to  the  heart,  while  mere  words  reach  the  ears  only." 


2QO         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

Elsewhere  he  defends  the  use  of  figurative  expression. 
"One  word  should  be  said  about  similitudes,  they 
have  an  incredible  efficiency  in  illuminating  the  un- 
derstanding and  in  touching  the  will.  .  .  .  Simili- 
tudes from  little  things,  subtly  applied,  are  of  ex- 
treme utility." 

In  thus  justifying  figures  of  speech,  he  was  justi- 
fying himself,  as  he  well  knew.  For  his  own  style 
is  simple,  quaint,  tender,  at  times  lofty  and  solemn; 
but  what  distinguishes  it  most  is  the  extraordinary 
richness  of  imaginative  suggestion,  of  similes  drawn 
from  every  phase  of  nature  and  human  life.  Flow- 
ers, doves,  bees,  he  is  never  weary  of  ringing  the 
changes  on  them.  It  might  be  thought,  perhaps, 
that  the  reader  would  weary;  but  he  does  not. 
There  is  such  constant  freshness  of  handling,  such 
variety  of  detail,  such  an  unfailing  sense  of  the  spir- 
itual bearing  of  all  these  symbols,  that  you  rejoice 
in  each  new  one  blossoming  amid  doctrinal  discus- 
sion, as  if  it  were  a  delicate  flower  in  a  barren  plain. 

And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  charm  of  these  poeti- 
cal digressions  does  not  come  from  exact  observation. 
Saint  Francis  is  no  Keats,  no  Thoreau,  to  spend 
hours  watching  the  balance  of  a  bird  on  a  wind-tossed 
spray.  Sometimes  you  get  the  impression  that  he 
has  forgotten  even  prayer  in  listening  to  an  autumn 
wind,  or  has  enjoyed  a  golden  morning  just  for  itself, 
as  when  he  says  of  doves  "their  plumage  is  always 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  SAINT  291 

smooth  and  it  does  you  good  to  see  them  in  the  sun- 
shine." But  generally  his  natural  world — for  that 
matter,  like  a  good  part  of  Shakespeare's,  his  exact 
contemporary — is  taken  from  Pliny,  from  Virgil, 
from  old  books  and  quaint  scholastics,  from  anything 
but  God's  blessed  sky  and  the  land  and  water  under 
it.  Phoenixes,  unicorns,  and  salamanders  play  a 
large  part  in  his  menagerie,  and  his  botany  is  too 
often  in  a  class  with  FalstafT's  camomile :  "Honours, 
rank,  dignities  are  like  the  saffron  plant,  which  the 
more  it  is  trodden  on,  the  faster  it  grows." 

Yet  genius  and  sincerity  can  make  even  wax  flow- 
ers blossom,  and  Saint  Francis  draws  from  everything 
profit  and  help  and  comfort  for  the  souls  whose  guid- 
ance is,  after  all,  his  great  and  only  care.  What  a 
light,  what  a  charm,  what  a  winning,  winged  grace 
attaches  to  his  words,  when  he  speaks  of  "marks  of 
the  love  of  God,  signs  of  his  good  pleasure  in  our 
souls.  He  nests  in  the  hawthorne  of  our  hearts" 

What  strikes  me  very  much  in  the  life  and  work 
of  Saint  Francis  is  the  immense  opportunity  for  the 
psychologist.  One  who  has  come  to  consider  that 
nothing  is  so  widely  curious,  so  inexhaustibly  fas- 
cinating as  the  study  of  the  human  soul,  grows  al- 
most envious  of  such  a  field  of  purely  scientific  in- 
vestigation. When  the  saint  writes,  "I  have  met 
several  souls,  which,  closely  examined,  offered  noth- 
ing that  I  could  consider  sin,"  what  psychologist  in 


292         A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

his  laboratory  can  often  feel  that  souls  have  been 
closely  examined  in  such  a  sense  as  that? 

But  great  as  the  delight  of  such  examination  would 
be,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  saint  could  find  a  delight 
much  greater.  Indeed,  he  himself  condemns  the 
scientific  pleasure  of  the  psychologist  as  dangerous, 
if  not  impious.  "Many  indulge  in  rash  judgments 
for  the  pleasure  of  philosophising  and  divining  the 
characters  of  people  as  a  mere  intellectual  exercise. 
If,  by  chance,  they  manage  to  hit  the  truth,  their 
audacity  and  appetite  for  more  increase  so  much, 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  turn  them  from  the 
pursuit." 

In  some  of  us  the  appetite  and  the  audacity  in- 
crease forever.  But  Saint  Francis  had  interests  even 
more  absorbing.  With  him  the  object  was  not  to 
know  souls  merely,  but  to  help  souls,  to  save  souls. 
The  direction  of  souls  to  him  is  "the  art  of  arts." 
And  who  will  differ  from  him*?  Simply  to  watch, 
to  divine  the  play  of  secret  springs  in  the  inner  life, 
is  exquisite  enough,  but  to  use  one's  cunning  sapience 
to  mould  souls  as  if  they  were  wax,  to  bring  light 
out  of  darkness,  joy  out  of  bitterness,  comfort  out  of 
great  trouble,  and  a  pure  and  perfect  flower  out  of 
what  seemed  a  mass  of  corruption,  could  any  human 
triumph  be  greater  than  this? 

1913 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-35m-7,'63(D8634s4)4280 


UCLA-College  Library 

PN  511  B72n  1917 


L  005  663  614  5 


College 
Library 


PN 
511 
B?2n 
1917 


LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  110484     1 


